


O Death

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Did I forget anything?, Doesn't Mean all Mentally Ill People are Asshats, F/F, F/M, For Once There is No Sex, Friendly Neighborhood Reminder, He's Just That Way, He's a Canon Asshat, I think that's it - Freeform, I'm Sorry, Including Good People, It's Hard to Get People to Have Sex When They are Being Hunted, Lots of People Die I'm Sorry, Lucy Also Struggles With It, M/M, Mental Illness is Not Something to Fear, Mentions of Mental Illness, Multi, Mythology - Freeform, Nicholas is an Asshat, Until Dawn AU, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis, Yes I know, again i am so sorry, dark mythology, rating is for violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-13
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-01 16:52:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 38,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16288298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: In February 2017, Amy Preston and Jessica Moore disappeared on Rittenhouse Mountain. One year later, Amy’s sister Lucy invites the seven friends who were there that night to that same mountain to try and gain some closure. But they’re not the only ones invading the snowy woods, and they’re about to learn that some myths are terrifyingly real…





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For those who want to read knowing who dies: at the end of the final chapter there is a list detailing who makes it and who bites the dust. You can click to the final chapter, click on 'notes', and then go back to the beginning to read. That way those who want to be surprised while reading will be. I hope you all enjoy!

_But what is this, that I can’t see, with ice cold hands taking hold of me…_

* * *

 

_February 2 nd, 2017_

Rufus turned on the camera, made sure it was recording, and then turned it to face him. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and variations thereupon, and welcome to Senior Year! Woooohooo!”

“Oh my God, Rufus you dork,” Jiya laughed.

Rufus turned the camera on her. “Our first interviewee is the lovely Miss Jiya Marri. Tell me, Jiya, how does it feel to know that you’ve got a prestigious scholarship to CalTech? Are you sad to be leaving high school behind?”

Jiya laughed, shoving the camera away from her. “Cut it out, Rufus, it’s one in the morning. You’ve had too much sugar. Or too much to drink. Or both.”

Lucy emerged from one of the other rooms. Rufus had no idea what all the rooms in this lodge were. Built by Lucy’s super-wealthy mom’s side of the family, it was supposed to be some big family ski retreat. But this weekend they had it all to themselves.

Well, all to themselves plus Nicholas and Emma but Lucy hadn’t been able to get out of inviting them, since Nicholas was her cousin.

Rufus put the camera up again. “Hey, Lucy, care to…”

His voice died away as Lucy hurried past, clearly crying, and Noah emerged from the room as well, looking angry and exhausted.

Ah. Lucy had told Jiya who’d told Rufus that she was going to break up with Noah but apparently it had happened… sooner than expected.

“Sorry man.” Rufus lowered the camera again and went off towards the living room.

Wyatt and Flynn were, predictably, passed out on top of each other on the couch.

“And here,” Rufus said in a stage whisper, “we have the _Wyattus Loganus_ and the _Garciatus Flynnicus_. These species have unusual mating rituals, which involve insulting one another and then cuddling when drunk and pretending it never happened.”

“Fuck oooooooff, Rufus,” Wyatt slurred.

“Hey,” Jiya observed, having followed them, “Where’s everyone else?”

“Upstairs I think?”

Emma appeared out of nowhere. “Hey Rufus can I borrow this?” She snatched the camera out of his hand. “Thanks!” And she took off up the stairs.

“Hey!” Rufus tore after her. “Emma Fucking Whitmore you fucking—”

Jiya sighed, hurrying after them as well. “Guys…”

Rufus dashed up the stairs after Emma, who was giggling uncontrollably before she skidded to a stop. “Shh, shh, shh,” she said.

“They’re going at it,” Nicholas whispered. He was peering through a crack in a door. “Oh! Oh shit Amy’s unbuttoning her shirt!”

“What the hell?” Rufus asked.

Emma tiptoed over and slid the camera so that it could view the room.

“Guys.” Rufus kept his voice normal. “What the hell are you doing. Amy’s in there?”

“Amy and _Jess_ ,” Nicholas said, waggling his eyebrows.

From inside the bedroom came Amy’s shriek.

Emma flung open the door. “Surprise!”

“Fuck!” Jess yelled. “What the fucking fuck Emma—”

“Did you—were you in on this?” Amy asked, clearly addressing Jess.

“What? No, Amy—Ames—”

Amy burst out of the room, her shirt still partially undone, and took off down the stairs, shoving past Rufus and then Jiya.

Jess appeared a moment later, running after her. “Amy! Amy I swear to God I didn’t know they were—Amy!”

Lucy emerged from… somewhere. This was a really big lodge. “What the hell’s going on? Why’s Amy screaming?”

“You guys are jerks, you know that, right?” Jiya shouted at Emma and Nicholas. “She’s had a crush on Jess for two years just waiting for her and Wyatt to break up and they finally get together and you pull this bullshit?”

“What bullshit?” Lucy asked.

“Amy!” Jess was yanking on her boots and jacket and running outside. Amy apparently hadn’t bothered with any of that and had just run out into the snow.

Flynn and Wyatt continued to doze on the couch, oblivious.

“Jess will get her,” Rufus told Lucy. “Don’t worry. They’ll sort it out and come back.”

 

* * *

 

Jess hurried after Amy. Fucking Emma and fucking Nicholas. She’d been trying to get with Amy for weeks but Amy was shy, and understandably wary seeing as Jess and Wyatt had only just broken up.

She’d had Amy sweet and warm in her lap and then _goddammit Emma—_

“Amy!”

Fuck, it was dark out. Jess turned on her phone flashlight to try and see the way, following Amy’s fresh footprints in the snow. She thought she heard or saw shadows a few times, something just out of the corner of her vision…

She told herself she was being paranoid.

She found her, right at the end of a path. “Oh, Amy.”

Amy was curled up in a ball on the ground, crying. She looked up as Jess approached.

“Baby, c’mere.” Jess helped her up, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “They were jerks. We’ll talk to Rufus about getting that footage deleted, okay?”

Amy nodded.

“You must be freezing.” Jess gave Amy her jacket. “I meant it, okay? I’d like to be with you. We’re headed for the same college, y’know.”

Amy put on the jacket, smiling tentatively at her. “Really?”

“Really, really.”

A branch snapped nearby and Amy jumped. “W-what was that?”

“Probably just a deer. There are a lot of them around here.”

Jess turned, and saw the shape of something… what… what the fuck was…

She grabbed Amy’s hand. “Amy. Baby. I need you to stay calm, but I need you to run.”

The creature drew closer. It was so dark, Jess couldn’t be sure of all its features, but the strange emaciated form… the strange milky white eyes that glowed…

She turned, yanking on Amy’s hand. “Run!”

The creature charged after them.

Jess ran down the path, dragging Amy along, her heart pounding. They had to get back to the lodge but the creature was in their way—they had to hope there was another path—

A spurt of fire came out from the side and Amy screamed in fear. Fire? What the fuck, was there a dragon around here? “Keep running!”

Jess dashed over a sort of bridge—and skidded to a halt.

They were at the edge of a cliff.

She turned around, still holding Amy’s hand, tucking Amy behind her. Putting herself in between Amy and the creature.

“Stay back!” she yelled.

Amy stumbled backwards, terrified. “Jess…”

“You hear me?” Jess yelled, trying to make herself look big and threatening. “Stay away!”

The creature advanced… Amy took another step back…

Her foot slipped and she wind milled with her free arm, pulling on Jess, who tried to counterbalance their weight…

They went tumbling over the cliff.

Jess reached up, scrambling for something—her hand caught hold—a branch—

Amy’s weight yanked on her, her arm nearly coming out of its socket, and Jess screamed in pain.

Up above them, she saw another massive roar of flame, and heard an inhuman shriek of agony.

“Jess!” Amy sounded terrified.

“Don’t let go!” Jess yelled. “Just hold on!”

The flames died down and something else peered over the cliff. Not a creature—a person, heavily bundled up, wearing large goggles.

“Help us!” Jess screamed.

The person reached down towards them. Jess tried to lift Amy up, but her arm failed her. “Ames, baby I need you to try and climb up the rock a bit.”

Jess could feel her hand getting sweaty. She wouldn’t be able to hang onto Amy for too much longer.

“O-okay.” Amy tried to grab onto something on the cliff face.

“Please,” Jess cried up at the person. “You have to reach down farther, I—”

The branch she was holding onto cracked.

“No!”

It snapped in half, sending both girls tumbling into the abyss.

 

* * *

 

Lucy paced up and down. “It’s been an hour.”

“It was just a prank,” Emma said. “I can’t believe she took it so hard.”

“You,” Lucy snarled, “can shut the fuck up.”

“Should we wake up Wyatt and Flynn?” Rufus asked. “Start a search party?”

“I can radio for help,” Jiya said. “Get local police up here?”

“Jesus Christ, they’ve only been gone an hour,” Nicholas pointed out.

“An hour in the dark with it snowing and freezing,” Noah replied.

“I’m going to look for them,” Lucy said. “I’m waking up the boys and we’re going to look for them.”

Noah grumbled something about Lucy depending on a drunk Wyatt and Flynn more than a sober anyone else, but Lucy ignored him and left the room.

Rufus sighed, standing up. “Jiya, wanna be my buddy?”

“Sure thing.”

They all piled out into the snow. Wyatt and Flynn had looked a bit dazed when Lucy got them up but after hearing Amy and Jess were in danger they splashed some cold water on their faces and suited up.

Rufus and Jiya took east, Emma and Nicholas took north, Lucy and Flynn took west, and Noah and Wyatt took south.

It was silently agreed upon by the others that if something bad had happened, having Lucy and Wyatt in the same team was a bad idea. They couldn’t be helpful if they were both crying messes.

They tramped around for what felt like forever. Lucy had to be literally dragged back to the lodge by Flynn, until he gave up and hoisted her over his shoulder caveman style, at which point she proceeded to kick him the entire walk back. “They’re out there!” she kept shrieking, in tears. “I know they’re out there! Amy!”

Wyatt didn’t talk to anyone. He shrugged off all attempts. The only one who succeeded in touching him without getting a snarl was Flynn, who sat down with him on the couch and put his arm around Wyatt’s shoulders while Lucy called the police.

Noah paced up and down while Lucy called, while Rufus decided someone had to be useful and clean up the messy kitchen.

Jiya followed him in there. “I don’t think we’re going to find them,” she admitted quietly. “Not without the police.”

“What makes you say that?”

Jiya glanced around to make sure none of the others could hear her. “I saw someone, through the windows. Out among the trees.”

“Lucy told us we’d have the place to ourselves this weekend.”

“I know. And there aren’t any other cabins or houses around here. It’s just the one lodge. Where would this person be staying? And why would they be out here, so late at night?”

“You think… you think they took Amy and Jess?”

Jiya nodded, her face pale.

Fuck. “Then we better hope the police get here soon.”

The police got there just after dawn, about four hours later.

But that was the last anyone saw of Amy and Jess.


	2. Chapter 2

 

_When God is gone and the Devil takes hold, who’ll have mercy on my soul?_

 

* * *

 

 

Wyatt stared out the window of the bus as the snow-covered landscape rolled by.

Normally he wouldn’t be doing something like this. Going back to the scene. Reliving that loss. But Lucy had asked him to, and he could never say no to Lucy.

It felt like he was going to a funeral or a wake, sort of. Jess and Amy’s bodies had never been found, and so even a year later the parents were refusing to officially declare them as dead.

Lucy, apparently, saw it differently, at least according to her voice message.

_Hi, Wyatt._

_I know it’s been, um, about a year. I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch. Mom put me in a mental care facility after… yeah. Anyway I was hoping you could join me up at the lodge for the anniversary. I invited the others, too. Well Emma and Nick kind of invited themselves, you know how they are. He’s still Mom’s little pet or something. Anyway I’d really appreciate it if you came. We’re just going to watch some of Amy and Jess’s favorite movies and have a quiet night remembering._

_I… I miss you. I’d really like to see you._

Wyatt had listened to that message dozens if not hundreds of times. He’d been a crap boyfriend to Jess but he’d liked to think that he could be a better friend—and then she’d died before they’d gotten a chance to find out.

Disappeared, not died. They hadn’t found her body.

But Wyatt wasn’t exactly holding his breath for her to turn up safe and sound.

He’d thrown himself into his college classes in San Diego, while Flynn had been up in San Francisco and Rufus and Jiya had been at MIT. Taking a break in the middle of spring semester to fly in to a snowy mountain cabin for the weekend wasn’t normally something any of them would do, but for Lucy… well. Lucy had always been their leader. They’d always followed her. And if she needed them, even after a year of silence, they’d be there for her.

The bus stopped and Wyatt hopped off, waving to the bus driver and walking up the snowy path to the ski lift that would take them to the lodge. According to Lucy, her mom once had plans to turn this mountain into a ski resort, but some big lawsuit from the local Native American community had soured those plans, and then Amy… well.

Wyatt saw that there was a set of footprints—large footprints—ahead of him in the snow. Looked like he wasn’t the first one in, then. And judging by the size… well, only one of them had sprouted up to over six feet in senior year.

He found Flynn sitting in front of the small operating building for the ski lift, trying to feed a squirrel. Wyatt paused, his heart hammering.

The thing was, he and Flynn had been… rivals, so to speak, throughout high school. The guy seemed to know exactly how to get under Wyatt’s skin, and it had taken until senior year and breaking up with Jess and getting wildly drunk at Dave Baumgardner’s homecoming party and making out with Flynn until he came in his pants to realize that there was a very, very specific reason that Flynn was able to get under Wyatt’s skin so well.

They’d ended up making out and half the time getting a hand down each other’s pants at pretty much every single party senior year. But Wyatt had—he’d been on the football team, okay, not drama club, and rumors were already swirling about him and Jess after their breakup, and then Jess and Amy had disappeared, and fuck if his dad even suspected that Wyatt was a fag (Dad’s word, not Wyatt’s)…

Yeah. Flynn hadn’t been all that happy with Wyatt refusing to so much as touch Flynn’s shoulder when they were sober.

Wyatt took a deep breath and stepped up so that Flynn could see him. “Hey.”

Flynn looked up and then stumbled to his feet, startling the squirrel into running away. “Wyatt. Hey.”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Wyatt’s stomach churned. “Long time no see.”

“Yeah, yeah. How—how’s college?”

“Great, great. San Francisco as stupidly expensive as they say?”

“Even more expensive.”

“Yeah.”

Wyatt looked down, scuffing his shoe along the snow. “How’s Lucy?”

Flynn’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her. Apparently Carol threw her into a mental hospital.”

“Sounds like Carol.” Nothing against mental hospitals—but Carol had always been a controlling bitch if you asked Wyatt. “I would’ve thought… I mean you two…”

“No I mean—I assumed you two—” Flynn cleared his throat and looked away.

Fuck, this was awkward.

“It’s weird,” Wyatt blurted out. “Being back here. I feel like—like if I just turn around Jess is going to be right behind me, telling me to pick up the pace because I’m a slowpoke.”

Flynn gave a harsh laugh. “I still—I know it’s stupid but I keep thinking, if I just hadn’t had so much to drink, if I hadn’t been passed out—but would I have run out after them right away?”

“Yeah, don’t—don’t beat yourself up.”

Flynn looked out into the woods, then cut his gaze over to Wyatt. “You were asleep on top of me,” he said quietly.

Wyatt sucked in an icy breath. “I was. I…” Fuck it, he’d made it clear to his dad that he wasn’t ever coming home again anyway. “I liked it.”

Flynn looked torn for a second, muttered something that sounded like ‘fuck it’, and walked over, yanking Wyatt into a hug. “I missed you, you little shit.”

“You too, asshole.” Wyatt buried his face into Flynn’s chest, breathing him in. Even when he wasn’t wearing any, Flynn always managed to smell like leather.

“C’mon.” Flynn grabbed his hand, pulling him along. “Let’s get this damn ski lift and get somewhere warm, I’m freezing.”

Wyatt would’ve pulled away once. Would’ve forced a laugh and asked Flynn what the fuck he was doing.

But fuck, it was the anniversary of the day his ex-girlfriend, his childhood best friend, had disappeared.

He could hold Flynn’s hand if he wanted to.

 

* * *

 

Flynn nearly had a heart attack when Wyatt curled right up into Flynn’s side when they sat down in the ski lift.

Lucy had been the untouchable girl he’d been in love with since freshman year after Dad—may he rest in fucking pieces—had died and Mom had moved back to the States and plopped her heavily-accented, gangly, anti-social son into the proverbial lake of sharks. But Wyatt had been the ridiculously annoying and stupidly attractive drunken hook up he’d been just as stuck on.

Wyatt had made it painfully clear, multiple times, that he was only bi when he was drunk, and Flynn hadn’t expected anything to have changed in the year since they’d all graduated.

Except now Wyatt was fucking cuddling with him. No one else was around, but still.

Flynn let his arm drop around Wyatt’s shoulders and they maintained a comfortable silence most of the way up the ski lift. Wyatt didn’t feel much like talking, apparently, and Flynn couldn’t blame him.

He wondered what he would say to Lucy.

The very thought of her still made his heart race. He hoped she was okay, that the therapy had helped, that she didn’t blame herself for Amy’s disappearance.

He hoped that she still considered him a friend.

“Do you ever wonder about how it all happened?” Wyatt asked quietly.

“You mean Emma and Nick pulling that prank?”

“I mean… like, take you for instance, right? What if your dad hadn’t died or your mom had moved back to America but not here, not Southern California. What if my dad had stayed in Texas instead of moving when my mom died. What if Lucy and I hadn’t been assigned lab partners, what if her mom had said no to the trip, what if Jess and Amy had gotten together sooner…”

“You said it yourself, it’s no good asking what if.”

“I just meant… how all these little decisions lead up to something big, or how a big decision can affect you but not in the way that you thought.”

“Wyatt, are you getting at something?”

Wyatt stared at him for a long moment, and Flynn’s heart thumped wildly in his chest. Wyatt was looking at him like… like he might actually… and their faces weren’t all that far apart…

The ski lift lurched to a stop and Wyatt lurched, caught off guard. Flynn mentally cursed the interruption.

“Is it stupid to say I don’t want to get out?” Wyatt admitted.

Flynn squeezed his shoulders. “Jess and Amy would want us to remember them. This’ll be good for everyone.”

“I hope so. I hope it’s not too morbid.”

Flynn shoved down the urge to kiss Wyatt and stood up instead. “C’mon, we’ll get inside, get a warm bath, you’ll feel better afterwards.”

“Sorry, did you just ask me to take a bath with you?”

Flynn’s mouth nearly dropped open. “Wyatt Logan, are you actually _flirting_?”

A look of complete panic flitted across Wyatt’s face, and then he got a determined look in his eye. “And what if I am?” he asked, taking a step towards Flynn.

Flynn tried to remember the stats of the Croatian football (soccer, for the heathens) team because being too turned on to move was kind of embarrassing. “I—”

Something slammed against the ski lift window.

 

* * *

 

Lucy rubbed her arms to keep them warm. “Where is everyone?” she asked.

Noah shrugged. “Rufus and Jiya are hanging out at the ski lift to wait for Flynn and Wyatt, no idea where Emma is.”

“I can’t believe you forgot the key,” Nicholas groused.

“Hey, you didn’t have to come, okay?” Lucy snapped. “You weren’t technically even invited.”

“I was there, too.”

“Yeah and it was you and Emma that made Amy run out in the snow, so maybe—”

“Okay,” Noah said, getting in between them, ever the peacemaker. “Let’s all take a deep breath—”

“This place has no cell reception,” Emma complained, walking up the path.

“Hello to you too, Emma,” Lucy said. “Long time no see, sure did miss you.”

“Don’t lie, princess,” Emma replied.

“Again,” Noah said, “deep breaths…”

Lucy slumped down onto the front steps of the lodge. She just wanted to spend some quality time with her closest friends after being cooped up in that goddamn hospital, and then trying to attend Stanford with her mom breathing down her neck. Therapy sessions every other day. Look, she needed therapy, no doubt, but Mom was treating her like she’d had a psychotic break or something when all she was doing was rightfully grieving over losing her baby sister. And starting college at one of the most prestigious schools in the country wasn’t made any easier when your mom was head of the history department and micromanaging you.

At least she’d get to see Wyatt and Flynn again. Maybe she’d even find the courage to tell them how she felt.

It was what Amy had been encouraging her to do, after all. Perhaps it was time she finally took her sister’s advice.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt yelped and Flynn yanked him back out of the way, glaring at the figure that had slammed itself into the ski lift.

It was Jiya.

“Oh my God,” she howled, unlocking the door and pulling it open for them, nearly doubled over with laughter. “You should’ve seen the looks on your faces!”

“Very funny,” Wyatt snapped. He was still holding onto Flynn’s arm, his chest heaving.

“Hey guys.” Rufus stepped up behind Jiya, waving.

“Don’t pretend you weren’t in on that with her,” Flynn said, grabbing Wyatt’s hand and exiting.

Wyatt didn’t pull away now that they were in front of other people. Okay… okay then, don’t have a heart attack, Flynn, just ask him what the fuck was up once they were alone.

“How are you guys?” Rufus asked, hugging Wyatt and then Flynn. “How’s sunny California treating you?”

“All right,” Flynn replied. “How are the greatest minds in the country?”

“Oh, y’know, half of them are pretentious gatekeeping nerds and the other half are desperately trying to make their hardworking parents proud and trying to achieve the ‘American Dream’,” Rufus said. “But it’s fun.”

Flynn noticed that Jiya snuggled up into Rufus’s side and that Rufus wrapped his arm around her waist. “Wait. Did you two finally…”

“Yup.” Jiya grinned. “I kissed him a month into freshman semester.”

Wyatt snorted. “Of course she had to make the move, Rufus, you make glaciers look like they move fast.”

“Hardy har har,” Rufus replied. “Have either of you asked Lucy out yet? No? Then shut it.”

“Speaking of, have you seen anyone else?” Flynn asked, squeezing Wyatt’s hand as Wyatt glared daggers at Rufus.

“Lucy, Nick, and Noah went up to the lodge, then Emma arrived and went up,” Jiya said. “We wanted to wait for you guys.”

“Leaving Noah alone to play peacemaker, now that’s just mean,” Flynn said, grinning.

“Guess we’d better get a move on, then,” Jiya replied.

They started walking up. Flynn desperately hoped that neither Rufus nor Jiya mentioned he and Wyatt holding hands—if one of them said something then Wyatt might spook and get prickly and defensive, and Flynn would lose his chance with whatever this was between them.

Luckily, Jiya seemed more interested in discussing the Native American legends about this mountain. “They say that you can’t harm any animals on this mountain or bad luck comes to you, and that this place was sacred to them and nobody is actually supposed to live on it.”

Flynn hummed in acknowledgment, idly glancing over at Wyatt. As he did so, he thought he saw—

Well, it was just a shadow, wasn’t it? Or maybe a deer or something.

“Damn, look at that sunset,” Rufus said, pointing.

The view was pretty spectacular from up here. “Sometimes I just forget to stop and take it all in,” Jiya added. “Y’know?”

“We’d better keep moving,” Wyatt said. “I don’t want to be out here after dark. It’ll be even colder. And I hear a warm bath calling my name.”

He glanced over at Flynn as he said it, his cheeks pink.

Flynn couldn’t have smothered his grin for the world.


	3. Chapter 3

_O Death, O Death, consider my age, please don’t take me at this stage…_

 

* * *

 

 

Lucy jumped to her feet as Rufus, Jiya, Wyatt, and Flynn emerged from the trees. “Wyatt! Flynn!”

She barreled down the path, launching herself at them. Flynn caught her, holding onto her tightly and burying his face into her hair. “It’s good to see you,” he murmured. “You okay?”

“I’m all right.” She pulled back, smiling at him, and then grabbed Wyatt. “Heya puppy.”

Wyatt wrapped his arms around her, shaking as he held her. “Fuck, I missed you Luce.”

“How you been holding up?”

“Walked away from my dad for good,” Wyatt admitted. “It’s what Jess had been encouraging me to do and, y’know… and college has been fine. How about you?”

“Yeah, how’s it with your mom?” Flynn asked.

Lucy shrugged. “Mom is… Mom. But I’m okay, I promise.”

The two boys looked at each other, then looked back at her. “Okay,” Wyatt said doubtfully. “If you say so.”

“I do say so.” Lucy grabbed her hands. “Now c’mon, the door’s frozen shut and I forgot the key so I need your help.”

“Um… help?” Flynn asked.

“I need you to break in, get the hairspray from my bathroom on the second floor, and use this.” Lucy held up Noah’s lighter. “To…”

“…turn the hairspray into a blowtorch and warm up the handle,” Flynn finished.

“Then unlock the door from the inside,” Wyatt added.

Lucy beamed at them. It felt like the three of them were on the same wavelength a lot of the time and she loved it, had missed it with a burning passion. “Exactly.”

Wyatt looked over at Flynn, who shrugged. “Sure, why not.” Flynn bowed to her, gesturing with his arm for her to lead the way.

Lucy walked them around back to where there was a window into the basement. “If we have to break any of the windows, I’d prefer it was this one.”

“I think I can jimmy it open,” Wyatt said. “Boost me up?”

Flynn boosted Wyatt who rattled the window frame in such a way that the lock popped open and he could lift it. “See?” he said, climbing through. “Easy as—whoa!”

Wyatt fell ass over teakettle into the house.

Lucy rushed to the window. “You okay?”

Wyatt groaned from where he was sprawled on the floor and gave a weak thumbs-up. “My pride’s wounded but that’s about it.”

“You had pride?” Flynn snarked.

Wyatt’s thumbs-up turned into a middle finger.

“We’ll be right back,” Flynn promised her, starting to climb in after Wyatt. “And don’t let the terrible twosome get to you. I just got you back, I’m not losing you because you went to jail for murder.”

Lucy felt her face heating up. “I’ll try, but be quick, I don’t know how long my patience will hold out.”

Flynn gave her a smile that made her knees buckle and then slipped into the house.

If she’d doubted she was still in love with the two of them… well, that had just answered her question.

 

* * *

 

Flynn helped Wyatt to his feet. “How are you really?”

“Good, I think I bruised my side a little but that’s it.”

Flynn nodded, then took Wyatt’s hand and started through the house. Wyatt tried not to do something stupid like jump Flynn right there in the creepily large and dark basement of Lucy’s family’s house.

“I don’t think this place has been touched since the incident,” Flynn whispered as they went up the stairs to the main floor.

Wyatt could remember the police interviews, the officers walking through the house, checking that the girls really had disappeared and this wasn’t a case of manslaughter or something, stupid teens who’d gone too far and were now desperate to cover up their mistake.

Dad hadn’t exactly taken it well that his son was involved in a police case. He’d barely agreed to let Wyatt go on the weekend retreat in the first place. Wyatt remembered Maria Flynn reading Dad the riot act when all the parents had come to pick up their kids, and Wyatt had known exactly where Flynn’s backbone of steel had come from because Maria had been ready to fucking duke it out with Dad in the police station parking lot.

“How’s your mom?” he asked Flynn as they went up the stairs to the second floor, turning on a couple lights as they went.

“She’s good. She asks about you and Lucy.”

“Tell her I said hi.”

Flynn glanced at him. “She was worried about you. After your dad…”

“Yeah. But I’m okay now. I left home.”

“You’re always welcome at our place. Mom wanted you to know that.”

“Thanks, man. I’ll think about it.” Would Maria still welcome him if he was coming as her son’s boyfriend, was the question.

“She’s okay with the whole sexuality thing,” Flynn added casually—too casually, like he was trying not to sound like it was a big deal when it was. “She knows I’m bi, so you don’t have to hide anything from her.”

_We wouldn’t have to hide us from her._

Wyatt felt a tight knot deep in his stomach start to loosen. “That’s really nice.”

Flynn pushed open the door to Lucy’s room, pausing and looking to the left.

Towards Amy’s room.

Wyatt couldn’t help but stare a little, too. Poor Amy.

Then Flynn shook himself and entered Lucy’s room, and Wyatt followed.

 

* * *

 

Lucy stood up as she heard the sound of the improvised blowtorch on the door handle. Rufus whooped. “Finally!”

Wyatt opened the door with a flourish. “My lords and ladies.”

“Excuse you,” Jiya said, stepping inside. “I’m a queen.”

Lucy pecked Wyatt on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Wyatt’s face went bright pink. Lucy grabbed Flynn’s shirt so she could tug him down and kiss him on the cheek. “You too.”

Flynn looked rather like someone had presented a cream pie to him and then shoved it in his face. “Ah…”

“Wait, did you finally grow a pair?” Emma said, gesturing at Rufus and Jiya.

“Hoo boy,” Noah muttered under his breath.

“Yes, Emma, we’re dating,” Rufus replied. “Shocking concept, I know.”

Emma opened her mouth to say something, but then there was a strange kind of thumping sound from upstairs.

Everyone froze.

“…did you hear that?” Lucy asked, praying her ears were just playing tricks on her.

“Nope,” Nicholas said, clearly lying.

Everyone looked at each other.

“…nobody here believes in ghosts, right?” Jiya whispered.

Another thump came. Lucy’s heart leapt into her throat and she instinctively reached out, grabbing onto Flynn’s shirt and Wyatt’s arm.

The thumps were getting louder and more frequent—and now there was squeaking—

Wait, squeaking?

Rufus let out an almighty yell of terror as something large and furry streaked past him, darted between Emma’s legs—making her shriek and jump a good foot in the air—and ran past Lucy, Wyatt, and Flynn to fling itself out the front door.

As it got out into the snow, Lucy could see what it was from the moonlight: a baby wolverine.

She collapsed into relieved, hysterical laughter.

“What the fuck was that?” Noah asked, clutching at his chest.

“A wolverine,” Flynn gasped out, sounding like he was starting to laugh too.

“Oh my God,” Lucy managed to get out, wiping at her eyes. That had fucking terrified her for a second.

“You should’ve seen the look on your face,” Emma said to Rufus. “You screamed like a little girl.”

“You were scared too,” Rufus shot back. “Pretty sure only dogs could hear that shriek.”

“What, did you think it was a ghost or something?” Emma said. “Whooooooo,” she howled, waving her hands in a faux creepy way. “I’m Jess, I’ve come back to haunt you for filming…”

“Hey, you took the camera from me,” Rufus snapped. “And stop making fun, that’s not—you don’t joke about that.”

“Fuck’s sake, what do you want me to do? It happened, that’s why we’re here, right? And I mean, she kind of deserved a prank, she jumped straight from Wyatt to Amy—”

“Hey.” Wyatt strode forward, his hands balls into fists like he was ready to make this physical if that was what it took to shut Emma up. “Watch what the hell you’re saying, Emma.”

“Oh my God.” Emma rolled her eyes. “You don’t get to be all protective because you feel guilty, Logan, you were a shit boyfriend who was making eyes at Lucy the whole time.”

Wyatt threw himself at her and Flynn had to lunge forward to get his arms around Wyatt’s chest in time and yank him back. “She’s not worth it, Wyatt, Jess wouldn’t want this.”

Wyatt glared at Emma but let Flynn soothe him. “I’m taking a damn bath,” he snapped. “You better hope I’ve cooled down by the time I come out.”

“If it’s anything like your other coming out,” Emma commented, “I’m not holding my breath.”

This time Flynn was the one striding forward. “You watch your damn mouth—”

Noah got in between the two of them, his arms held out like a referee. “Okay, okay, guys, please. We’re here to focus on remembering good times, right? Not infighting.”

“Tell her to stop poking the bear then,” Flynn growled, still glaring at Emma.

“You’re all so sensitive,” Emma replied. “Like we don’t all know you two were blowing each other—”

Lucy’d had about enough. She stormed over. “Emma, shut the fuck up or get out of my house.”

“It’s my house too,” Nicholas protested. “And I want her to stay.”

“Stop thinking with your damn dick,” Lucy snapped at him. “Emma, you’re on thin fucking ice.”

“It’s not my fault Flynn’s got a temper.”

“You ever,” Flynn snarled, “bring that up again—”

Emma seemed to finally realize that she had all of Flynn’s six foot four body ready to fling itself at her to inflict maximum damage, and that he wasn’t about to let a pre-med student five inches shorter than he was get in his way. She held her hands up in surrender. “Fine! Fine. I’m sorry or whatever.”

Wyatt glared at Emma and stormed off, not looking anyone in the eye as he headed upstairs.

“You need help?” Lucy called. Fuck, this hadn’t been how she’d hoped the weekend would go at all. If Wyatt was going to take a nice warm bath she wanted to be grabbing Flynn and joining him, dammit.

“I remember where it is, thanks,” Wyatt called, his tone carefully neutral the way it got when he was angry but didn’t want to take it out on Lucy.

She sighed, not protesting as he disappeared.

“Emma,” Noah said carefully. “You said you forgot your bag at the ski lift, why don’t you and I go back and get it.”

Emma shrugged. “Sure.”

Noah shot Lucy an _I’m sorry_ look. Lucy shrugged. It wasn’t his fault—or anyone’s fault—except Emma’s.

“I don’t really feel like hanging around where she is,” Rufus admitted. “You said there was a couple’s cabin a few minutes away?”

“Yeah, it was the original cabin up here before the lodge was built, or something like that,” Lucy said, tossing Rufus the keys. “You and Jiya have fun, I’ll see what I can do about her and then we’ll start the movie marathon, make s’mores and popcorn and stuff.”

“Don’t stress,” Jiya told her, hugging her as she and Rufus headed out.

“I’m going to fix a snack,” Nicholas said, disappearing into the kitchen.

Lucy looked over at Flynn. “You okay?”

He shrugged, looking up the stairs towards where Wyatt had disappeared. “Yeah. Just… this would be better if she wasn’t here. Or Nick.”

“Yeah. I know.” Lucy felt exhaustion overtake her and she had to hold in tears. She’d just wanted to curl up with her friends and watch _The Princess Bride_ and _The Martian_ and stuff.

Flynn sighed and walked over, wrapping his arms around her. “It’s okay.” He ran his hand through her hair, carefully undoing the tangles as he did so, his fingers lightly scratching her scalp. “We’ll get through this.”

That was when the lights in the house went out.


	4. Chapter 4

_O Death, O Death, consider my age, please don't take me at this stage..._

 

* * *

 

 

Noah held in his sigh as he and Emma walked back down the path to the ski lift. “You shouldn’t goad them.”

“What? I can’t have a bit of fun?”

Noah suspected that Emma’s anger and teasing were a result of her own sense of guilt, but he didn’t dare voice that aloud. He just wanted to get the bag, get back, and relax in front of the fireplace. Preferably with everyone having cooled down from the fight.

“There’s a difference between a bit of fun and what you’re doing, Emma, and you know it.”

Emma shrugged, folding her arms and looking away. “I don’t see why you’re so eager to defend them. Lucy didn’t exactly do right by you.”

“She had feelings for other people. She didn’t cheat on me or anything, she was honest with me, she broke it off because it was the right thing to do. It hurts, but that doesn’t mean it was unfair.”

There was a long, long silence. They were almost at the ski lift, in fact, when Emma spoke again.

“I liked Jess.”

Her tone was soft, and Noah knew that ‘like’ meant a lot more than in a friendly way.

Emma paused in the snow, her arms still folded in front of her like a shield. “I thought she would—after she and Wyatt broke up—you know I was the first person she told she liked girls too? And I thought maybe…”

She scuffed her shoe along the ground. Noah waited, quiet. That was something he remembered Lucy had said she’d liked about him, how good he was at listening.

“…but then she got with Amy. She wanted Amy. Not me. That—wild, unpredictable, two years younger—and not me.”

“That must have hurt,” Noah supplied.

“You think?” Emma looked away, but she wasn’t fast enough to hide the way her eyes glistened with tears. “I didn’t want… I miss her. Why do you think I said yes to this stupid thing when Nick asked me? I don’t like him, I don’t care about the others, I just… I wanted to feel near her again.”

They stood there for a moment in silence. Noah wasn’t sure what to say or do. Normally he’d try and hug the person who was upset but he suspected Emma wouldn’t appreciate that.

After another minute Emma said, her voice rough and quiet, “I don’t want my bag anymore. Let’s just go back to the house.”

“Okay.”

Noah followed her as she tramped back through the snow. He looked out into the dark woods, wondering where Jess and Amy had gotten to, what could have possibly happened to them.

And then—

Did one of those trees just… move?

He looked again.

Nothing.

He walked up to grab Emma’s elbow. “Hey, I’m cold, race you back?”

Emma gave him an odd look. “Sure.”

“On your mark, get set, go.”

They took off running up the path. Emma was dead set on winning, her gaze ahead, but Noah kept glancing through the trees.

Nothing but darkness stared back.

 

* * *

 

“I can’t believe Mrs. Preston insisted Lucy bring those two,” Rufus grumbled as he and Jiya made their way out of the lodge.

“She’s always had a big soft spot for Nicholas,” Jiya replied. She grabbed Rufus’s hand. “C’mon, don’t think about them. Think about us... a warm cabin with a fireplace...”

She and Rufus had yet to have sex. Part of it was just the busyness of the semester, but part of it, she knew, was her own nervousness. She’d never had sex before and this was different from a few groping sessions with some random cute guy. She was in love with Rufus. She wanted to do this right—to be good at it, to impress him.

It terrified her to think she might be disappointing.

Not that Rufus had ever tried to pressure her. He hadn’t even brought up the subject after their first talk where she’d asked if they could wait. They would be making out or something and she would just gently let him know when she was done or when that was as far as they were getting and that would be that.

Rufus wrapped his arm around her. “It’s kind of creepy out here.”

“If you’re trying to scare me...”

“No, I’m just—I feel like we’re being watched.”

Jiya shivered. She’d told the police about seeing a figure through the window, but it could just as easily have been a deer or something and she knew they hadn’t taken it too seriously. But she knew—she knew it was a person.

Or something.

“Do you want to go back to the lodge?” she asked.

Rufus shook his head. “Nah. I’m just being paranoid I guess. I’d rather spend a little time with you.”

He kissed her temple as he said it, and Jiya’s heart swelled. She wanted so badly to tell him she loved him, but it felt like the words just kept getting stuck in her throat.

She pulled away, grinning at him. “Wanna bet on our three favorite idiots?”

Rufus put on an affected thinking face. As he did so, Jiya ducked down, grabbing some snow and packing it into a ball.

Rufus saw what she was doing too late to stop her. “Ji—”

She hit him square in the face.

Rufus yelped, then growled playfully, wiping the snow off his face. “Oh, it’s like that, is it?”

He grabbed some snow but Jiya ducked behind a tree, laughing as his shot missed her. She grabbed some more snow and jumped out from behind the tree, but Rufus had run around behind it and hit her from the side.

Jiya screamed, flinging the snowball at him and catching him on the chest as he leapt at her, tackling her into the snow.

“Oh no,” she laughed, grinning up at him. “What are you going to do with me now?”

“Good question.” Rufus smiled down at her, looking besotted. Jiya craned her head up and kissed him, feeling warm all over despite lying in the snow.

A strange animal scream of pain rang out and they both scrambled to their feet, Rufus holding onto her tightly.

“What was that?” Jiya whispered. Fear, like ice, slid down her spine.

“Let’s get to the cabin,” Rufus replied.

They hurried down the path. The cabin was only a couple more minutes away but it felt like ages. Jiya kept checking the woods, searching, trying to see if there was anything out there.

She couldn’t see anything except trees and snow.

The cabin loomed up ahead in a small clearing and Jiya all but flung herself into it. Rufus locked the door behind them and went to start up the fireplace.

“What do you think that was?” she whispered, peering through the windows. There was nothing out there but snow. At least, nothing that she could see, anyway.

“Probably a deer,” Rufus said. He pulled away from the fire and got some blankets for the couch. Jiya crept over to him, taking off her shoes and outer gear so that she could snuggle under the blanket with him. “I’ve heard they make some pretty weird noises.”

Jiya nodded. Rufus glanced at her. “Hey, do you want to go back?”

“No.” She curled up into his arms, resting her head on his shoulder. Her stomach was all in knots, and not just from that strange animal scream. “Rufus?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to tell you something, and you’re not allowed to laugh, okay?”

“Why would I laugh?”

She took a deep breath. “I’m… I want to have sex with you.”

Rufus went stiff as a board and pulled back. “Okay. Not seeing how that’s supposed to make me laugh.”

“Okay but the thing is—I also don’t want to.”

“…okay.” Rufus turned her so that she faced him and he could look into her eyes. “Why?”

“Because what if I’m not good at it?”

Rufus didn’t laugh. He actually looked shocked. “Jiya—is that—I mean, if you don’t want to have sex then you don’t want to, I won’t ever pressure you but, is that why you haven’t wanted to? Because you think you have to be perfect or something?”

Jiya nodded.

“Love, you don’t have to be anything. Look, if anyone’s going to make the sex suck it’s me, guys are easy to please. Especially me, I’m _pathetically_ easy to please. You’re the one who has a higher likelihood of being disappointed.”

Jiya laughed a little, which she suspected had been Rufus’s intention. He smiled at her. “And I don’t care if it’s good. We’ll practice, and we’ll get better at it until it’s good, right? What I care about is you, that I’m doing something with you, connecting with you. That’s all that matters to me. And—we don’t have to, y’know, do Tab A into Slot B, there’s other stuff we can do before that and we’ll just work our way up, yeah? We don’t have to just jump into the deep end here.”

Jiya nodded, then threw herself forward, hugging him. She felt freer than she had in weeks. “Thank you.”

“For being a decent person?”

“I just, I love you. And sometimes I still can’t believe this actually is happening.”

“Me neither,” Rufus promised her. “I thought I was gonna uselessly pine after you forever.”

Jiya pulled back, reaching down to get her phone out of her pocket so it didn’t jab either of them in the thigh as they got down to business.

But her phone wasn’t there.

She paused. “Um, Rufus? Do you have my phone?”

“No…” Rufus looked around. “Did you set it down somewhere?”

There was a crash, and something went hurtling through the window, breaking it. Jiya screamed, both she and Rufus scrambling backwards as the object landed on the floor.

It was her phone.

Oh. Oh those _assholes_.

Jiya jumped to her feet, stomping over to the front door and yanking it open. “Hey, turds!” she yelled. “Emma! Nicholas! I know it’s you, you pranking morons! You want to scare us, huh? Well guess what! You can’t! We’re going to have awesome sex, and be cute and you’re going to vomit with how sweet and romantic we are, and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

She slammed the door shut again.

When she looked over at Rufus, he was grinning in a disbelieving kind of way. “Damn, that was sexy.”

Jiya gave a little bow. “Why thank you.”

And then something burst through the window, grabbing at her with vicious, painful claws, claws that dug into her flesh, tore at it—strength that ripped her away, took her off her feet—

She grabbed the edges of the window frame, the glass cutting into her, heard an inhuman growl and was yanked—

She screamed, knowing Rufus was too late even as he jumped to his feet and sprinted for her, as she was dragged through the snow.


	5. Chapter 5

_O Death, O Death, you make me cold, you run the life right outta my soul._

 

* * *

 

 

Rufus felt a rush of primal fear like nothing he’d ever known before as something—not someone, some _thing_ —leapt through the window of the door, breaking it, and grabbed Jiya.

It grabbed her—it, the thing, with claws, gray skin drawn taut like an emaciated man—and yanked her, screaming, through the window.

Oh, fuck.

Rufus jumped to his feet. He didn’t have his boots on, or his jacket, just his jeans and shirt, but fuck if he cared. He had to get to Jiya.

He ran pell-mell through the snow, jumping over logs, over stones, dodging branches. He could hear her screaming for him even though he couldn’t see her, and his heart twisted and lurched.

“Rufus! Rufus help! Rufus! Please—please Rufus help me!”

She was screaming for _him_ , and he had to get to her, he had to save her—he didn’t have a weapon or anything but he’d find a way, he’d fucking strangle that thing to death if that was what it took, he wasn’t losing her—

The screaming stopped.

No. Rufus burst through the trees out into a kind of clearing, up against a rock wall. It was odd—he’d run in the opposite direction of the lodge, he was pretty sure, but it looked like there had once been a road here. There was a bridge, an old rickety one that he had to dash quickly over before it gave way underneath his weight. And there, spots of blood, a trail that led to…

Holy shit.

There was a mine entrance here?

Rufus darted in, hurrying down the steps. There were old creaking wooden beams, and what looked like an old office. A calendar on the wall said 1954. Holy crap.

Up ahead the walkway ended with an elevator to take the miners down.

“Jiya?” he called.

Probably not smart when there was a crazy creature running around loose, but how was she supposed to know he was there if he didn’t call out to her?

There was no answer.

“Jiya?”

The darkness felt like more than just normal darkness. It felt alive, like it was creeping in on him, watching him, slowly seeping into his lungs.

“…Rufus?”

It was a whisper, but it was there. He hurried forward, and there, lying on the bed of the elevator…

She looked awful. Scratches all over, and dirt, and her bare feet cut, bruises everywhere. Rufus knelt down beside her.

“Don’t worry, it’s okay.”

Jiya looked terrified but also dazed. Rufus saw a large bruise on her head and he thought she might have hit it—she might be concussed. Shit. He had to get her to a doctor.

“I don’t feel so good,” Jiya admitted.

“It’s okay. Is it okay if I pick you up? That won’t hurt too much?”

Jiya nodded, looking drugged, her eyes glazed and unfocused. Rufus reached for her—

The elevator gave a lurch.

Rufus looked up. He could be crazy but he thought he saw something skittering up there, something with limbs too long and skinny to be human—

The thing cut the lines to the elevator.

It was like for a horrifying moment, everything was in slow motion. Rufus turned and locked eyes with Jiya. She looked like she couldn’t quite process what was happening to her, like it all felt like some terrible nightmare. He reached out for her, but she was just an inch or two too far from him, and then the gravity kicked in and Jiya’s eyes went wide, she screamed, she reached out for him—

The elevator plunged down into darkness, and Jiya’s scream cut off.

Rufus was left with his arm extended, clutching at empty air.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt relaxed into the pleasantly hot water. The bathtub was enormous, more like a jacuzzi—Lucy’s family had really spared no expense on this lodge.

He popped his earbuds in and put his iPod on shuffle, laughing quietly to himself when _Karma Chameleon_ came on. He could still remember Jess, tipsy at junior prom, dancing wildly along to that song. He wasn’t in love with her anymore, but he still loved her, and he missed her—especially how she could take anything and make it fun, how she hadn’t cared what people thought of her.

Fuckin’ Emma. Wyatt tipped his head back against the rim of the tub and closed his eyes. He could be having sex with Flynn in this tub right now, but he knew if Flynn were actually here, Wyatt would just spend the whole time ranting about Emma.

Emma hadn’t always been like that. She’d been friends with Rufus and Flynn at one point, and friends with Jess too. But after she’d gotten chummy with Nicholas she’d just… changed. Or maybe the nastiness that had always been there had risen to the surface. Wyatt didn’t know and didn’t care.

He just cared about her not ruining this weekend for everyone, especially Lucy.

He must’ve dozed off, because when he woke up, _You Made Me Love You_ was playing in his ears and the room was dark.

It was eleven p.m. according to his phone, so it made sense that the room was dark, but he could remember turning on the lights. Maybe the electricity was on the fritz?

At least the water was still nice and warm thanks to the jets. Mmm. He should definitely see about getting Flynn and maybe even Lucy in here with him. If he could get up the courage. Flynn had made it clear that he’d wanted more from Wyatt than just drunken fumbling and frottage, but Lucy… Wyatt had never been sure. He was ninety percent convinced she was in love with Flynn, but sometimes she’d do something—like the song that was playing on his phone. _You Made Me Love You_. She’d lip-synced to it once, staring straight at him. That had to mean something, right?

He’d see how this weekend went. Maybe he had a chance with both her and Flynn, a chance to fix the mistakes he’d made in high school.

Wyatt turned to reach for the shampoo, his back to the front door.

Which meant he didn’t see it ease open.

And he didn’t see the masked figure enter, the masked figure wearing overalls and a white and black clown mask.

He didn’t see the figure watch him silently for a minute.

In fact, he didn’t see anything at all.

 

* * *

 

Lucy pulled back from the fireplace. “I swear to God, this thing better work. If the electricity is down _and_ the gas I’ll have to go restart the generator and I’ve never done that before so it better work, this stupid useless piece of—”

“Yelling at it doesn’t make it work better you know,” Flynn noted, crouching down next to her.

“Maybe not, but it makes me feel better,” Lucy replied, nudging him with her shoulder.

He smiled at her, and Lucy felt her heart flutter. Maybe…

There was a yell of pain and fear from the kitchen.

Lucy jumped up. “Nick?”

Silence.

Electricity going out in a lodge that had been dark and silent on a cold mountain for a year, that she could buy. But now her cousin was yelling…

“Nicholas?” Lucy repeated.

Nothing.

She glanced at Flynn, who stood up and offered his hand for her to take, pulling her to her feet. “I’m sure he just cut himself or something.”

“Then why isn’t he responding?” Lucy replied, whispering for some reason.

She had the oddest feeling that she was being watched. She shook herself. There were no such things as ghosts, there were no such things as ghosts…

Lucy walked across the living room towards the kitchen. “Nick?” she called, pushing open the kitchen door. “If this is some kind of prank—”

A figure jumped out at her, tall, wearing overalls and a demonic clown sort of mask, wielding a goddamn baseball bat.

She screamed, stumbling backwards. She heard Flynn burst in behind her, heard him scream her name—

The baseball bat went crashing into her temple and the world went black.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt frowned, pulling an earbud out. Had he just heard something?

And why was his skin crawling like he was being watched?

He turned to look, but nobody was in the room with him.

“Guys?” he called. “Lucy? Flynn?”

There was no answer.

Wyatt got out of the tub, stopping when he saw that his clothes were gone. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Flynn! If this is your way of seducing me I gotta tell you it’s not working!”

He grabbed a towel, wrapping it around his waist. “Ha, ha, very funny, make Wyatt walk around in just a towel. Hilarious. Lucy! I’m stealing your s’mores if you did this!”

There was still no answer.

Wyatt cracked open the door.

The entire house was empty.

He took a deep breath, unable to shake the feeling that he wasn’t alone, that something he couldn’t see was there with him. “Jess, if that’s you, you’re being a real jerk,” he muttered.

Nicholas had a room here too, right? Wyatt walked down the hall until he found it. There were still clothes there, like in Lucy’s room, mostly winter gear but some jeans and boxers too, and shirts. They were a little snug on him—Nicholas was a skinny bastard—but it was better than a fucking towel.

It was also damn cold in this house. What had happened to the heat?

Wyatt walked out into the hallway towards the stairs. Where the fuck was everyone? Lucy and Flynn wouldn’t have gone anywhere without telling him…

He turned to the stairs and froze.

Tied to the bannister, hovering in the air, was a black balloon. It had an arrow painted on it, pointing downwards.

A chill raced up Wyatt’s spine.

Something was very, very wrong.


	6. Chapter 6

_O Death, hear me pray, could you wait to call upon me another day?_

 

* * *

 

 

Flynn woke up to a pounding headache. Fuck, it was cold, and he was pretty sure he had a bruise…

Lucy!

He staggered to his feet, his vision slowly clearing. She’d been attacked by some kind of—of psycho, and then he’d been attacked, and now—

Flynn looked around, finding himself alone and in what appeared to be the storage barn out back of the lodge. What the hell?

Then he heard a scream.

“Flynn!” It was Lucy. “Flynn, where are you? Flynn!”

She sounded terrified. “I’m here! Where are you?”

“I don’t k-know. I’m—someone’s tied me up, I’m tied to a board or something—Flynn there’s someone in here with me!”

“Wyatt?” He’d been in the bath, completely helpless if someone decided to go after him.

“I don’t know.”

Flynn followed the sound of her voice. “Just keep talking to me, okay Lucy? Just keep talking. It’s okay, _moja draga_.” He hoped Lucy hadn’t started taking Croatian in her spare time.

“Um, okay, I’m—I’m hanging from my hands and it really hurts, I’m in a large room and it smells—it smells weird in here. Like—oh fuck, Flynn, I think it smells like blood.”

Jesus. “Okay, I’m almost there, you sound a lot closer.”

He turned the corner and found himself in some kind of room with a grate on one end, separating it from the rest of the barn. It was pretty dark…

The lights flicked on and Flynn staggered, blinded for a second.

“Welcome, Garcia Flynn, to our lovely game!”

The voice was deep and echoed, seeming to come from everywhere, clearly distorted. Whoever was speaking was using a kind of voice modulator.

“What the fuck?” Flynn blurted out. He squinted through the grate.

Lucy. Lucy was there, hanging from a tall wooden board, and next to her, apparently still unconscious, was Nicholas.

“Lucy!” Flynn yanked at the grate, at the door that separated them, but nothing gave.

“Flynn.” Lucy wriggled desperately, trying to get out of the cuffs that held her. “What’s going on, who are you, Garcia—”

She must really be scared if she was calling him by his first name. “It’s okay, Lucy, breathe. Just breathe, I’ll get you out.”

“He might get you out,” the voice acknowledged. “Or he might not. It’s all up to him.”

Nicholas raised his head, slowly blinking as consciousness returned. “What—what the fuck is happening?”

“Nick!” Lucy struggled even harder, trying to reach him. “Nick, it’s me, we’ve—we’ve all been attacked—”

“Yeah, some nutcase knocked me out in the kitchen.”

“Today’s game,” the voice continued, “is all about choice.”

A terrible buzzing sound began to fill the room. Flynn looked dead ahead.

A gigantic circular saw had been set up on some kind of track in front of Lucy and Nicholas. The track diverged halfway down, sending the saw either towards Lucy or towards Nicholas.

His stomach lurched.

“This saw is going to move forward and kill one person,” the voice went on. “The question is, which one?”

“No,” Lucy whispered. “No, no, no, no—”

“What. The fuck,” Nicholas yelled. “What the fuck!?”

“In front of you, Flynn, you should see a lever. Turn it one way to save one of them, turn it the other way to save the other. Choose neither, and the saw will move towards one of them anyway.”

Flynn could see a picture of Lucy on the left of the lever and a picture of Nicholas on the right of the lever—but Lucy and Nicholas couldn’t see. They’d have no idea which one he chose until the saw got close and changed tracks.

“You can’t ask me to play God!” he yelled up at the ceiling.

“Choose,” the voice replied.

The saw started to move down the track.

“Break down the door!” Lucy yelled, still struggling to get out of the cuffs. “Try to break down the door, Flynn!”

He threw himself with all his might against it, but all it got him was a bruised and aching shoulder. Whoever had made this grate knew what the fuck they were doing.

“Flynn, man, c’mon,” Nicholas pleaded. “I know we’re not the best of friends, but—”

“He’s not gonna choose,” Lucy snapped. “He’s going to get both of us out, we’re going to be fine.”

The saw was moving closer and he couldn’t get the door down, fuck, he couldn’t get it down and in a second or two the choice would be out of his hands and—

He knew he was going to hell for it, but if there was one thing Flynn knew, it was that his loyalty had always trumped his morality.

He grabbed the lever and yanked it over to Lucy’s picture.

He wasn’t losing her, not today, and certainly not to some psycho.

“Nicholas, I’m sorry.”

Nicholas let out a kind of scream, something almost inhuman, and yanked uselessly at his cuffs. “Flynn, no, what—no c’mon, no, no, no!”

Lucy was crying. “Nick it’s okay, it’s okay, Garcia—Garcia you gotta—switch it back, switch it back!”

“What? Lucy are you crazy?”

“Mom always liked him better than me and I’ll be with Amy, it’ll be fine!”

“No,” Flynn snarled, barely recognizing his own voice. He’d burn the world down before he lost someone he loved.

The saw was moving faster now, diverting, going down the track that led to Nicholas—Nicholas was still screaming and struggling, trying to get out, Lucy was pleading to the psycho that he’d made his point, he’d gotten them to play his game now stop the saw and let them go—

“Lucy!” Flynn could see what was coming and he wasn’t going to let her watch. “Lucy close your eyes!”

“Garcia—”

“Lucy please just close your eyes and turn away!”

Lucy turned her head away from Nicholas, closing her eyes.

The saw reached him.

It ripped apart the flesh, intestines exposed and cut open, and Flynn both wanted to vomit and couldn’t look away as Nicholas was literally sawed in half, screaming the entire time until his eyes went glassy and his body went still.

The door separating them clicked open.

Flynn slammed the door open and rushed over to Lucy. Alive, breathing, safe, Lucy.

Oh, he was getting the bastard for this. And he was keeping Lucy safe if it was the last thing he did.

 

* * *

 

“Don’t look.”

She couldn’t breathe. Every breath in felt like a stab.

“Keep your eyes closed for me, okay Lucy? Just keep your eyes closed.”

“Is he okay?”

She knew it was stupid to ask. He hadn’t sounded okay. But she couldn’t help but hope—he’d been an asshole but he’d been her cousin—

“Just keep your eyes closed, Lucy. I’m getting the lock.”

Her clothes and face were wet. Nicholas wasn’t saying anything. She couldn’t even hear him breathing.

“G-Garcia, is he all right, what happened—”

The shackles around her wrists popped free and she fell forward, right into the solid wall of Flynn’s chest, his arms wrapping around her and picking her up bridal style. “Just keep your eyes closed a little while longer. You’re doing really well.”

She was shivering. She couldn’t stop shivering. Where was Nicholas. Where was her cousin, why couldn’t she look why couldn’t she look _why couldn’t she look_ —

“Flynn?” “Lucy?” “Oh my God.”

She opened her eyes.

They were outside the shed. Emma and Noah were standing there, mouths agape.

Lucy looked down at herself.

She was absolutely covered in blood. Her cousin’s blood.


	7. Chapter 7

_My mother came to my bed, placed a cold towel upon my head._

 

* * *

 

 

What the fresh fuck was going on here?

Wyatt followed the balloon down the stairs only to find that there was another one. And then another one. They seemed to be leading him through the lodge.

Part of him thought that maybe, y’know, he shouldn’t follow the creepy black balloons. But every time he peered into another room, he found no one.

“Guys?” Nobody in the kitchen, the living room, the dining room, the game room… nothing.

Wyatt definitely, however, got the feeling that he was being watched.

It wasn’t just his paranoia, either. When he turned to look, candles lit by themselves. When his back was turned, the television flicked on to show someone screaming, and he only barely caught a glimpse of it as he whipped back around before the TV turned off again.

This was extremely creepy.

Wyatt didn’t believe in ghosts. And if ghosts did exist, he didn’t think they were malevolent. Someone feeling the presence of someone else, that he could buy. But creepy shit like stacking chairs and sucking souls? He didn’t get that.

But something freaky was definitely going on here.

The balloons led him into the media room, where there was a big home theater with seats.

For a moment, everything was quiet.

Then the screen lit up, filling with an image of…

“What the shit?”

It was him. Him, in the bath earlier, dozing, listening to music. Wyatt’s stomach twisted. He was dressed now but he felt—exposed. Violated, almost, knowing that he’d been like that and someone had been peering in, watching, _filming_.

“Would you look at that.”

Wyatt whipped around, trying to find the source of the voice. Someone was on speakers or something. “What the hell is this?”

“I don’t know, Wyatt Logan, what does it look like?”

“This isn’t funny. Where are my friends?”

The screen changed. “Oh, they’re a little tied up at the moment.”

Wyatt’s stomach felt like it had dropped out.

The screen showed Lucy, tied up and screaming for Flynn, next to an equally tied up Nicholas.

Wyatt started forward instinctively before remembering that this was just on a screen. “What did you do to them?” Where was Flynn? Lucy was calling for him but Wyatt couldn’t see him. “If you did something to them—either of them—”

“Either of whom?” the voice asked. “But don’t worry. The lovebirds are safe for now. Nicholas, on the other hand…”

Wyatt watched as a large, circular saw started to move forward.

Oh, oh fuck no.

He closed his eyes, but that didn’t shut out the sound of Nicholas screaming. “You’re a fucking psychopath, you know that? You’re seriously disturbed.”

“In that case, when I tell you that you have ‘til the count of ten to run… I’m sure you’ll take it seriously.”

What?

“Ten… nine… eight…”

Wyatt opened his eyes, looking around. There was another door to the side, there.

The main doors flew open, and a tall man in overalls and a creepy demonic clown mask started advancing on him. “Seven… six…”

Oh, fuck. He had no weapons, no nothing.

Wyatt ran for it.

The other guy was fast, but Wyatt was faster. He’d been a runningback on the football team, his goal was literally to run the fastest and outstrip the other guys. The room he’d darted into was a spare guest room and he jumped over the bed, running through the bathroom, into the next bedroom, out into a hallway and down into the basement.

He wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, just trying to escape. He ran through the basement, the loud sound of the other guy’s boots echoing behind him. He turned and saw—there was another door.

Wyatt ran up to it, but it was—it didn’t have a handle. What the fuck.

He turned. The guy was advancing, but up on top of a wine shelf (again, what?) there was a handle.

Who’d put it up there? Was someone trying to keep something out, or something in?

Wyatt grabbed it, yanking the wine shelf down to slow the other guy, jamming the handle in and getting it turned, sliding in, slamming it shut just as the psycho reached him.

There was a yell of frustration but Wyatt didn’t waste any time celebrating. His heart was pounding so hard he thought it might leap out of his mouth. He was in some kind of old, disused part of the lodge. Actually, it looked much older than the lodge. There was an old elevator of some kind, or rather the hole where an elevator used to be.

He darted in and crouched down, below floor level. He held completely still, trying to lower the sound of his breathing.

Loud, ominous footsteps echoed above his head. Wyatt held his breath.

He could hear the heavy breathing of the jackass, standing right above him. There was a long pause as the guy apparently looked around.

“Dammit,” the psycho muttered, and then Wyatt could hear the footsteps walking away.

He slowly released his breath, his heart hammering in his ears.

Fuck, that was close.

 

* * *

 

“What the hell happened?” Emma demanded.

Lucy was shivering uncontrollably in Flynn’s arms, covered in blood. Flynn looked pretty worse for wear himself but he was resolutely holding onto her and it didn’t look like he’d let go even if there was a gun in his face.

“N-Nick,” Lucy choked out.

“There’s some kind of psycho on the loose,” Flynn said. “He knocked all of us out, chained Lucy and Nick up, and he killed Nick.”

“Oh fuck,” Noah blurted out.

Emma went pale. “Nicholas is dead?”

“In—in half,” Lucy managed. “In half, in half, just—just like—just like that—”

“I need to get her back to the house,” Flynn said. “And I need to get Wyatt, he was still in the tub, I have to make sure he’s safe. Can you two go and radio for help? There should be one at the ski lift.”

“Yeah.” Noah grabbed Emma, who looked like she might vomit. He’d never understood exactly what she and Nicholas were, but he knew they were close. “C’mon, Emma, it’s okay.” He looked over at Flynn. “Stay safe.”

“I’ll take care of her,” Flynn promised, cradling Lucy. “See you in a minute. Be careful out there.”

Noah nodded. Yeah, he didn’t much fancy becoming a story on the nightly news. “I will.”

He led Emma back down the path towards the ski lift.

Fuck, this weekend had taken a turn for the nightmarish.

Noah hurried down the mountain with Emma. He couldn’t stop thinking about the thing he’d seen in the woods, or thought he’d seen, anyway. Was it the same person who’d attacked Lucy and Flynn, and killed Nicholas? Or was it someone—or something—else? Was it a group or an individual at work here?

It was like being in a horror film, only Noah had always thought those things were exaggerated, a bunch of reliable tropes that weren’t really based in real life.

The blood on Lucy’s clothes and the terror in her eyes said differently.

“I can’t believe this is actually happening,” Emma admitted as they hurried down the path. “I can’t—Nick—”

“Don’t think about it.” There’d be time for panic later. “Let’s just think about the ski lift, okay?”

“I shouldn’t have come here,” Emma muttered.

“You didn’t have to come here, all right?” Noah struggled to keep the anger out of his voice. “You and Nick weren’t invited, okay? And if it weren’t for you two we wouldn’t have to have this anniversary in the first place. So just… let’s just be quiet, maybe?”

Emma fell silent, although Noah could practically hear her thoughts as she silently fumed.

When they got to the ski lift, though—it got worse.

The first sign things were wrong was that one of the windows to the office-slash-operating room was broken. Noah could peer inside easily, and what he saw didn’t look good at all.

Someone had busted up the radio equipment and trashed the place. There was even the word DIE written in red paint on the wall.

“Noah?”

He turned to see Emma pointing out towards the edge of the slope.

The ski lift itself had been sent about thirty feet out.

“Shit,” Noah whispered.

“You were on the football team, with Wyatt,” Emma noted. “Could you jump that?”

“I appreciate that you think I could,” Noah replied, “but hell no. That’s like thirty feet, Emma, I don’t think even Olympic long jumpers can manage that.”

“Fuck.” Emma peered into the office. “We could use the operating system…”

“But we need the key. I don’t have it.”

“Does Lucy?”

“If she did, she would’ve given it to us, wouldn’t she? Flynn asked us to radio for help.”

“Well, it was working earlier,” Emma snapped. “How else did we get up…” She trailed off, her eyes going wide. “Nicholas. He had the operating key, I remember.”

“Shit.” Lucy and Flynn said Nick was dead—whoever killed him must’ve taken the key and used it to fuck them over.

He peered into the office, hoping that maybe there was a locker with a spare key, or maybe…

There was a map on the wall. Noah squinted. If this was correct…

“Emma. This map says there’s a radio tower, just up the hill. If we go up there, we can radio for help.”

“How long of a walk is it?”

Noah tried to calculate. It did look like a ways up… “Crap, I think about twenty minutes. No way, we need to get back to the others.”

“Wait, hold on, we need help, Noah. Lucy’s gone crazy, Nick’s dead, Rufus and Jiya are probably next since they’re out sexing it up or something, who knows where Wyatt is—what if we get back and we’re just more victims? How are we going to survive this if nobody knows where we are or what’s going on?”

“There’s safety in numbers, Emma. If we leave them alone—it’s just Flynn up there. He’s competent but he can’t do this all by himself.”

“I wouldn’t underestimate Flynn.”

“I’m not. I’m saying he’s got at least one person to look after and that’s a handicap. Lucy needs medical attention.”

“And you’re the one to give it to her?”

“I can at least be one more person if that guy strikes again.”

“So you can, what, get killed next? You’re not a ninja warrior, Noah, you can’t fight back. We need the police.” Emma folded her arms. “Now you can go back to the lodge, but I’m going to the radio tower. You can join or not, up to you.”

No way was he letting Emma walk twenty minutes to the radio tower alone. “Fine, I’ll come with you.”

He just hoped the others would be all right.


	8. Chapter 8

_My head is warm, my feet are cold, Death is moving upon my soul…_

 

* * *

 

 

Rufus stared at the spot where Jiya had been.

Nobody—nobody could survive that fall, could they? She’d been weak, she’d… but he couldn’t just leave her, he had to make sure…

He got up on his feet, trying to find another way down. It looked like there were a hell of a lot of walkways and tunnels around, crisscrossing all over the place. Made of wood, too, which wasn’t looking good thanks to the snow and the damp. They had to be rotten in places.

Walking over to the side, though, it looked like there was a kind of map on the wall. Rufus peered at it. Looked like these mine tunnels went around forever under the mountain. The date on the map said 1954, and there were two buildings listed that Rufus was pretty sure he’d never heard about from Lucy: Rittenhouse Hotel and Rittenhouse Sanitorium.

There’d been a sanitorium on here? Weird.

There were a bunch of red crosses on various tunnels, and some scribbled notes that made it a little hard to read the map, but… Okay, so it looked like if he took the… right hand tunnel, he could find a set of stairs to get down a level and reach Jiya. He was guessing that the elevator had dropped all the way down, and it looked like there were quite a few levels to this thing. But if he could take the stairs…

Rufus backed up, looking around to see what he could find to light his way. There were lanterns still strung up, which struck him as odd. Tools were left lying around too, and a cart, and everything. Rufus would be the first to admit he didn’t know jack shit about mining, but he knew that nobody was going to be happy if stuff was just left lying around. This stuff had to be valuable, right? And if a mine was shut down like this one was, that meant it had to be bricked up or something, or at least the equipment taken away to be used somewhere else.

Had these people left in a hurry?

He grabbed a lantern and scrounged around, finding some flint and tinder over by one of the carts. Sweet.

Now that he could actually see where the hell he was going, he moved further into the mines, following the road.

It was claustrophobic in this place. Lucy wouldn’t have liked it at all. Rufus picked up his pace. Jiya would be cold and injured if she was—if she—

There was a sound almost like a roar, and a humongous spurt of—oh fuck, was that fire?

Rufus ducked to the side, pressing himself against the wall. Shit, shit, shit.

Up ahead there came an inhuman shriek, and another blast of fire. Rufus’s chest felt tight with panic and he couldn’t seem to get himself to breathe normally. Holy fuck, what was going on in here?

The fire stopped, as did the shrieking, and Rufus saw a figure step into the light at the end of the tunnel.

It was—he couldn’t tell. A man, a woman, a variation thereupon, or even human at all. They had a flamethrower on, of all insane things, and they were looking right towards Rufus.

He pressed himself against the wall, praying the person wouldn’t notice him.

Rufus counted in his head, trying to calm himself down. One… two… three…

The person or whatever it was turned and began to walk away.

Rufus exhaled slowly. Okay. This person obviously had something to do with the weird shit going on here. Rufus waited until the person was a bit away from him, and then began to follow.

The person had to have heard the elevator crashing. Hopefully they’d lead him to Jiya.

The tunnels twisted, and Rufus had to be careful to keep from being heard or his lantern from being seen. His heart was hammering the entire time, pounding in his ears. He wasn’t sure, but he felt like they were moving downwards. This was going downwards, right?

The tunnel ended abruptly, and Rufus winced as he was hit with a blast of cold. Up ahead, the person or thing trudged on. It looked more like a person now, lit up by the moon, someone wrapped up in a coat and walking through the snow towards…

Holy shit.

A massive stone building rose up out of the snow, looking cold and unyielding. Was this the sanitorium?

There was a stone wall surrounding the property. No way was he getting through the gate—not only was it locked but he was pretty sure that would be where the person would expect any intruders to come from.

That just left climbing over the wall.

“Once more unto the breach,” Rufus muttered, approaching the wall.

His instinct was to turn back, to find Jiya, but another part of him knew that it would be futile. She’d crashed down several levels of mines in a rickety old elevator, already weak and battered.

And another part of him knew that he wouldn’t be able to survive it if he got down there and found her corpse.

He grabbed onto the wall, struggling with the lantern in one hand, just managing to haul himself up on top of it despite the ice. This person—they had to be responsible for what had happened to Jiya. If he couldn’t save her, he could damn well avenge her.

Rufus shivered as he slid down the other side of the wall, the freezing stone feeling like it was burning his fingers. He was just in his jeans and a shirt, and the cold was getting to him, but like hell he was turning back.

He tramped up through the snow, keeping a lookout. The woods were dark and silent, no movement, but he hadn’t seen that attack coming at the cabin, either. Whatever this person or thing was, they moved fast.

It looked like the place had been barricaded—wooden beams nailed to the windows, grates put on doors, cracks covered—but he was able to open the front door easily enough. It was made of thick, sturdy wood, and the handle was stiff from cold but it wasn’t locked. Huh. What kind of place needed to cover entrances, but not lock anything?

The kind of place that wasn’t dealing with creatures as intelligent as humans, his mind supplied.

Rufus shivered, then shook it off, sliding into the building and closing the door behind him. Leave no trace, he’d seen enough horror films to know that. If he disturbed anything and that creepy person came by and noticed, they’d know he was following them.

The inside of the building was just as cold as the outside, but Rufus could tell this had once been a fancy place. Thick carpet covered the floor, torn curtains hung from the windows, and paintings and a welcome sign were ripped and dangled from the walls. There was rubble, probably just from stone aging with time, but there was also scoring on the walls.

Rufus recognized that. Flynn had shown him pictures from Croatia, remnants of the war. He’d been too young to fight in it, of course, but the cities still bore the scars. Those marks on the walls were from bullets.

There’d been a firefight.

Rufus held his lantern high, looking around. He couldn’t see the stranger anywhere, which almost spooked him more than if he could see them. There was a door that led to a chapel, and then a hallway that led down to Ward A. Rufus tried the first door.

Locked.

All right, Ward A it was then.

The hallway was dark and narrow, with doors yanked off their hinges on either side of him. Jesus, what had gone down here?

Rufus peered into one room. Most of them looked like holding cells—yay for 1950s psychiatric hospitals—but this one looked like a kind of examination room.

He crept in further. There was an overturned gurney of some kind that had torn straps on it, like it had been used to tie someone down and that someone had ripped their way free. Dark brown stains covered the gurney and the walls.

He had a feeling it wasn’t coffee.

On a table were a bunch of files strewn about. Huh. Rufus picked a few up.

They were all patient documents, all miners, at least according to the filled out ‘occupation’ section.

 _Eleven miners rescued_ , one report read. _Looked surprisingly healthy despite having been trapped for so long._

The report went on to list symptoms and so on. Rufus picked up another file—this one was about a miner, but had photos.

 _Patient’s condition deteriorating,_ the report read. _Tried to bite Nurse Brown._

The first photo showed a man with a large scar on his forehead. The second photo showed the same man but with the skin stretched tight over his face and his lips starting to pull back, a hollow look in his eyes. The third showed even longer teeth, and mottled skin, and his hair falling out… the fourth…

Rufus dropped the file, bile threatening to work its way up his throat.

The fourth picture was of nothing he’d ever seen before. A haunted, hollow face, burning hunger and hatred in the eyes, sunken cheeks, hairless, thin elongated limbs and nasty, sharp, long teeth, a protruding black tongue like that of a corpse…

It was a monster.

Fuck. _Fuck_. What the hell was going on here? Or rather what had gone on here. These files were all from 1954.

The map, on the wall. The mining equipment just left scattered around. Miners trapped…

…trapped where? How? What had happened to them?

Rufus backed away from the table and slipped out of the room. He had to get back to the lodge, he had to tell the others that something seriously freaky had gone down on this mountain.

Jiya had said—his heart squeezed at the thought of her—she’d said that this mountain was sacred. Protected. Could it be that something had woken up? Something… inhuman? In retaliation for the mining, for the white people invading the land?

Not that Rufus didn’t think a whole lot of white people had it coming but, um, could he and his friends not be caught in the crossfire?

He hurried farther down the hallway, then paused when he found himself at a fork. Go left, to Ward B? Straight ahead? Or up the stairs to Staff Offices?

…fuck it. He was here, might as well find out what he could.

He went up the stairs towards the offices, trying to keep his lantern low and avoid being seen. He still didn’t know where this person was, or how they were involved in this mess, or if they’d been the ones to hurt Jiya. There could be a monster lurking underneath all those winter clothes.

There were a few doctors’ offices, but the one Rufus headed for was Chief Administrator Bruhl.

Rufus peeked inside.

The office was dusty and a bit messy, looking like it hadn’t been touched since the 1950s. On the desk were neatly organized piles of papers, and sitting at the desk…

Jesus _Christ_.

That. That was a corpse. That was very much a corpse.

“The dead are just dead,” Rufus muttered to himself, creeping closer. “They can’t hurt you.”

There was a gun clutched in the dead man’s hand, and a bullet wound in his temple, dried blood crusting the dusty, shriveled body. On the desk were several awards, all attributed to a Dr. Anthony Bruhl.

There appeared to be a suicide note of some kind on the desk. Rufus picked it up.

 _I am sorry,_ the letter read.

_When we realized that the miners had come back different, I thought we were on the edge of a breakthrough. A new understanding of life, of the mind. Instead we awoke monsters. We should never have covered up the truth. Now they are loose. Now they are killing. Nothing stops them. They are ravenous. The chaplain says they are from Satan but I know they are from something older than that. They are our reckoning. May those who find this forgive my foolishness._

Rufus set the letter down and picked up the neatly stacked papers next to it. The first was a newspaper headline stating ELEVEN MINERS BRAVELY RESCUED. The second was a telegram from Rittenhouse Mining Co., stating that the rescued miners were to be given the best of care but kept in isolation until they could sign non-disclosure agreements. The third was a telegram from the mining foreman to Rittenhouse, stating that there were thirty miners trapped.

Below that was another telegram. It was from Rittenhouse to the foreman, with only two words:

_Keep digging._

Rufus put the papers down, thinking back. The map—it had some red crosses on it, hadn’t it? He hadn’t thought about them at the time, focusing on the elevator, but would that… would that indicate dangerous areas?

Keep digging.

Thirty miners trapped, but the newspaper said eleven rescued. The miners were kept in isolation afterwards to sign agreements—agreements to keep silent about Rittenhouse continuing to dig despite knowing the danger?

The miners had come back different. Rufus remembered the photos. Different how? What had happened to them? And where did the other nineteen miners go?

Rufus backed out of the office and headed back down the stairs. There was no more time to find answers—he could speculate all he wanted but he had to get back to the others and make sure they were safe.

When he got to the ground floor again, he peered out of a window. He could see nothing but snow. How was he supposed to get back to the lodge now? Unless he wanted to tramp through the mine again and that sounded like the opposite of safe.

A noise came from down the hallway and Rufus jumped. Fuck, the stranger, he’d almost forgotten.

He darted down the hall to Ward B, then down another set of stairs, not thinking about where he was going, just trying to keep his distance. Huh, there was another sign.

_To Hotel._

Hotel? These idiots had put a mining company, a sanitorium, and a hotel all on the same mountain? If that didn’t scream psychotic killer a la _The Shining_ then he didn’t know what did.

But if he remembered the map correctly, the hotel had been further down the mountain than the sanitorium. It would at least get him theoretically closer to the lodge.

Rufus followed the signs into the darkness.

 

* * *

 

The walk to the radio tower was cold, and Emma’s attitude was even colder. Noah didn’t want to make the situation worse by talking, so he just kept quiet. Saying the wrong thing and starting an argument was the last thing he wanted, especially when he could feel his own patience wearing thin.

“Shit,” Emma said quietly as the tower came into view. “It’s a lot taller than you’d think.”

Noah walked up the wooden steps that led to the base of the tower. It looked rickety—he couldn’t help but wonder the last time someone had fixed this place up. “I don’t think this thing’s been touched since the 80s or something.”

“I think Carol had plans to fix it up,” Emma noted, looking around and peering into the dark. “When she was going to make this into a proper resort.”

Before Amy’s death, that had been the plan. The lodge was just the first step. That was what Lucy had told Noah, anyway. Her mom had inherited pretty much the whole mountain.

Noah climbed up the metal stairs that led to the top, trying not to think about how cold the metal was, or how high up he was getting.

“Why is it so windy all of a sudden?” Emma groused, following him up and shivering.

“We’re almost inside.” Jesus, it was cold, exposing them to the cold the higher up they got.

The stairs ended in a trap door. It was easy enough to shove open, and Emma locked it behind her when she got up. It was still cold in the tower, but at least they were sheltered from the wind.

“Oh thank God,” Emma moaned in relief, hurrying over to the table. There was a full radio setup on there, and Emma didn’t waste a moment fiddling with it.

Noah had no idea how to work one of these old radios, so he sat back and let her work it until it crackled to life.

“Yes!” Emma crowed. “Okay, okay, station… where’s the station…”

For a few minutes, there was nothing but static. Emma patiently turned the dials, ear practically pressed to the radio. It was moments like these that Noah remembered why Emma was at the top of their grade, why she’d gotten into such a good college. Noah couldn’t help but wish that she used that patience and calculation for something other than one-upping the people around her.

“Look around,” she told him. “If I can’t get this radio working, there has to be something to help signal we’re in trouble.”

Noah looked around, but there wasn’t much… a locker, a desk, a printer, and what looked like a metal box on the wall.

Huh. In his experience, a box set into the wall signaled something that was useful for emergencies. He pried it open—it wasn’t locked but the cold had gotten to it—and found a flare gun.

Noah glanced over at Emma. She’d probably want him to use the flare to signal for help, but Noah still couldn’t help but think they should’ve gone back to join the others. And what good would setting off a flare do in this wind and snow storm?

He pocketed the flare gun—and a voice came over the radio.

“Yes!” Emma practically screamed in triumph, grabbing the radio mic. “Hello? Hello?”

“Ranger service for Blackwood County, over.”

“We need help!” Emma replied. “Over!”

“Hello?” It was a male voice over the radio, sounding tired. “Hello, is someone trying to contact us?”

“Yes!”

“I’m not getting your signal very well. Please speak slowly and clearly, over.”

Emma visibly calmed herself, taking deep breaths, before she spoke into the mic again. “This is Emma Whitmore. I’m with seven—” She stumbled, and Noah realized that now, there were only six others besides Emma. Nicholas was gone. “—I’m with seven friends at Rittenhouse Lodge. We’re under attack. One of us has been murdered. Over.”

“Murder!?” The ranger went from tired to alert.

“Yes! Yes, there’s a maniac or something here. He’s trapped us. We can’t get to the ski lift, over. We need rescue, over!”

A creaking noise, almost like something hitting metal—or climbing metal—echoed below them. Noah jumped.

Emma looked over at him, wide-eyed.

“Probably just the wind,” he whispered. “This tower’s old.”

“I read you, ma’am,” the ranger said. “Please stay in your position. We will be sending copters to pick you up as soon as the storm ends, over.”

“As soon as the storm ends? When will that be, over?” Emma’s voice grew tight, a sure sign she was angry.

“… probably not until dawn, over.”

“Until dawn!?” Emma looked over at Noah. “But—”

Something banged against the trap door.

Emma shrieked and Noah jumped back, his heart hammering. The person, thing, whatever, banged against the trap door again, trying to get in. Thank God Emma had locked the trap door, oh thank God…

“You have to be faster than that! Over!” Emma yelled into the mic. “It’s here, it’s here with us, him, it, I don’t know—it’s coming to get us! It’s here with us! Over!”

“Ma’am?” The ranger sounded definitely worried now. “Ma’am! Who’s here, who’s with you?”

Noah grabbed her, yanking her away from the trap door. The thing or person banged again, and then there was the sound of something crawling down the metal—it almost sounded like claws—and then silence.

“…ma’am?” the ranger asked again.

Silence. More silence.

And then the radio tower lurched.

“Someone cut the support lines!” Noah shouted in realization.

Emma dove for the radio mic.

“Emma no!”

She pressed the button. “Mayday, mayday, we’re in the radio tower, someone’s cut the lines we’re falling, mayday!”

Noah scrambled back, grabbing onto the wall. “Emma! Get back from the glass!”

The tower tipped slowly at first, and then all in a rush, tumbling down and crashing. Emma screamed, falling down—right onto the glass windowpanes.

Noah held on tight to one of the support beams, his body dangling. “Emma!”

He saw her try to move, and saw the glass burst into spiderweb cracks. “Shit,” Emma spat. “Noah…”

“Don’t… move…”

“I—”

The glass shattered. Emma screamed, falling, but the whole tower was falling too, Noah’s grip slipped—

He couldn’t say, in the end, how it happened. It was all a jumble. But somehow, the tower tumbled further down, and Noah went crashing onto the floor.

“Noah!”

He crawled across the floor, trying to avoid the creaking beams, and peered over the side.

Emma had managed to grab onto the handrails of the tower, her body dangling over the side of a massive…

Oh shit, a massive cliff.

“Noah!” Emma yelled. “Help, please!”

“It’s pretty unsteady over here!” Noah called. “Just let me think!”

“Stop thinking and do something!” Emma snapped.

“You know it’s not helpful when you’re yelling at me!” Noah took a deep breath. “Emma, you’re upset. That’s not going to help. I need you to breathe with me, I’ll get you out.”

The tower lurched again, and the rail Emma was holding onto started to break off. Noah scrambled for balance, his heart leaping up into his throat as he nearly went head over heels into the abyss.

There was a ledge, he saw. A ledge of the cliff, across from them. Maybe…

“Noah!” Emma was crying, tears sliding down out of the corners of her eyes. “Noah, please, I’m sorry, please just help me up! Do something!”

“Fuck.” He reached down for her, but the radio tower was creaking and shaking…

Emma shrieked as the tower lurched down more, tipping precariously. Noah nearly lost his balance and the rail Emma was holding onto loosened more. “Noah!”

“I don’t want to tip it!”

“Please!”

Noah looked across the gap, at the ledge. He knew he could probably make the jump, but…

Fuck, he’d never be able to live with himself if he didn’t help her. He was training to be a doctor because he wanted to help people, to save lives. Wasn’t this the same situation? And when he was a doctor, he couldn’t make judgment calls on whether his patients deserved saving or not.

Noah got flat on his stomach and reached down. “Emma! Reach up! Take my hand!”

Emma reached, straining, her fingertips brushed against his…

The tower gave another lurch, sliding down, and the rail Emma was holding onto finally broke off.

She screamed, a scream he was never going to stop hearing in his nightmares, the breeze from her fingertips stirring his fingers as he tried to clutch at her and she fell down, down, down.

Down.


	9. Chapter 9

_My wealth is all at your command, if you will move your icy hand._

 

* * *

 

 

Wyatt stayed in his hiding place for a little while longer, until he heard the guy leave back the way they’d come. He couldn’t make out any words the guy was saying but he sure sounded pissed.

Well, fuck him. What the fuck, he’d killed Nicholas and terrified Lucy and Flynn. Were they okay? Where were they? Still tied up?

He leveraged himself up out of the elevator shaft and looked around. He had to be careful where he stepped, there was dust and broken glass and who knew what all strewn about everywhere. He shivered. There was no heat down here, and he’d just swiped a pair of jeans and a t shirt.

This looked like a hotel. He could see an old key rack, and numbered doors. Huh. He’d had no idea there was anything up here before Carol Preston had built the lodge.

He wandered farther down. Maybe there was another exit that would let him go around the psycho.

This part looked… not lived in, but used. There were working lights, for one thing, and a workbench of some kind, and tons of special effects equipment.

A folder on the table caught his eye, next to some empty medicine containers. He felt like he’d seen those kinds of containers before in this place. Upstairs… in Nicholas’s room.

Wyatt flipped open the file. It was someone’s medical history file from a mental health facility. Lucy’s, maybe?

But when he flipped through, instead he found a history of going in and out of mental health hospitals—about Nicholas.

Suspicion started stirring in his gut. But Nicholas had been murdered, Wyatt had seen it, and Lucy had sure acted in that footage like it was real. And why would she pretend, anyway?

Looking to his left, he saw a newspaper, from about a month ago. He picked it up.

_Local Janitor Arrested for Arson_

It detailed something about a local Native American janitor who, angry at the Preston family for building on sacred land, had tried to set the lodge on fire.

There was also a pile of postcards. None of them looked pleasant, all saying things like “you’re next” and “die whores.”

The postcards were all addressed to the lodge.

…could it be that Nicholas had paid this psycho to come and terrorize them? It sure as fuck sounded like something Nicholas would do, especially now that Wyatt was staring down a mental health file and some empty pill bottles.

Something buzzed underneath the papers and Wyatt jumped a pile, his heart galloping.

Fuck, it was just a cellphone.

Nick’s cellphone.

Wyatt stared at the texts that had made the phone buzz. They were from a Dr. Cahill.

_Nick, I’d love for you to call me. You missed our appointment and I just want to make sure you’re okay._

_Nicholas, is this about your plan?_

_Nicholas, I know what weekend it is._

_Nicholas please call me._

_Nick, your plan isn’t going to work. It’s not going to solve anything. I really think it’s best if you would call it off and come stop by my office._

_Nicholas, I’m getting worried. Please call me._

Shit.

Whatever Nick’s plan was, it had definitely gone wrong. He’d told it to his therapist, it seemed, and Wyatt couldn’t blame the guy for disapproving if Nicholas’s plan had been to hire a goddamn arsonist who sent threatening letters to Lucy’s family.

Wyatt tried to get himself to breathe normally. Okay. Okay, he just had to get out of here and get to Lucy and Flynn, and find the others, and they’d—they’d call the police, somehow, and get help and sort this all out. Right? Right.

_Knock. Knock._

Wyatt slowly turned, chills racing up and down his spine, and stared at the far end of the room.

There was another door there.

And someone was knocking on it.

 

* * *

 

Flynn carried Lucy to the house, sitting down on the couch with her as she started to hyperventilate. He pressed their foreheads together. “Lucy. Lucy, _moja draga,_ I need you to breathe with me. In and out, slowly, count to three.”

He rocked her slowly, keeping their foreheads together, trying to create a safe bubble for her. Lucy’s breathing slowly evened out and she stopped crying, gripping him back with strength.

“Wyatt,” she whispered. “Garcia, we have to find him.”

“I know.” He brushed her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ears. “C’mon, hopefully he’s just napping in the bath.”

Lucy nodded, her hands coming up to press against Flynn’s cheeks. “Thank you,” she whispered. “I—I know it’s selfish, to be glad I’m alive, but—thank you.”

Flynn’s heart felt like it was being squeezed in a vice. “You don’t have to thank me.” He’d do it all over again.

He stood up, helping Lucy to her feet, keeping a hold of her hand as he led them up the stairs to the second floor.

His heart sank as he opened the bathroom door to find it empty. Wyatt’s phone and earbuds were there, and the tub was still filled with water, but there was no sign of him.

“No,” Lucy whispered. “No, no…”

“He could be somewhere else in the house,” Flynn pointed out.

“What if that—that psycho got him?”

“Then we’ll rescue him,” Flynn told her. If that fucker had touched a damn hair on Wyatt’s head, he was going to show him the meaning of pain.

Lucy nodded, her face pale but determined.

They walked back through the house, checking everywhere. It was eerily dark and silent, but there was no sign of Wyatt anywhere.

“Flynn?” Lucy whispered. She was wrapped around his arm like a koala, which Flynn had to say he didn’t mind given the circumstances.

“Yeah?”

“Do you think… I mean, we never found Jess or Amy. Do you think that whoever’s after us… got them?” Lucy’s voice sounded like she was near tears again. “Do you think they—they died like that, in pain and scared and—”

“We can’t think about that right now. We have to focus on finding Wyatt, okay?”

Lucy nodded. “Okay.”

There was nowhere else in the house to check except… the basement.

Flynn swallowed hard. Okay. Okay, he could do this.

He opened the door to the basement, grabbing a flashlight from the drawer and turning it on. “Keep a hold of me.”

“No problem,” Lucy assured him, laughing weakly.

They descended down into the darkness.

 

* * *

 

“Emma!” Noah yelled.

Nothing.

He stumbled to his feet. She’d been there, she’d been right there, he’d almost had her—fuck, fuck, _fuck._

Then the radio tower shook.

Oh no.

The floorboards beneath him creaked, the metal shivered, there was almighty groan, and it plunged down.

Noah yelled instinctively. The ledge, if he could—

He jumped, reaching for it, but he fell short, landing lower down, the wind getting knocked out of him. Ow, fuck, his ears were ringing and his head hurt and—

_Shit!_

Something was—something was grabbing him by the collar, from behind, something—no no no let go, let go, let _go_ , fuck, it was—he twisted around, it didn’t look human, it had claws, it was…

“Let go!” Somehow he knew yelling was futile but he also couldn’t stop himself. “Let go! Stop!”

Something, anything, no rock no weapon no—

The flare.

The flare, the one he’d found in the tower!

Noah yanked the flare out of his pocket, his hands shaking, sweating, he aimed it behind him—

Fired.

There flare blasted past his face, burning, blinding him, but it hit the creature somewhere bad, the head or the chest, and it shrieked, releasing him and skittering off into the darkness.

Noah collapsed onto the floor, shaking and sweating all over, his chest heaving. Fuck, he might even have peed his pants a little, oh fuck.

He forced himself up onto his feet, looking around wildly, making sure he was really alone.

Not only was he alone… he was in some kind of mine shaft.

What. The. Fuck.


	10. Chapter 10

_I am Death and none can tell, if I open the door to Heaven or Hell…_

 

* * *

 

 

Emma woke up slowly.

Her head… felt heavy… so did her fingertips. So… oddly heavy…

She opened her eyes.

And gasped.

The world was upside down, and on fire.

She sucked in a breath, forced herself to hold it, then slowly let it out. Did it again. And again, until she could feel herself waking up and calming down.

The world wasn’t upside down. She was.

She was hanging, her foot caught by a cable, dangling in midair.

Shit.

Below her the ground stretched, dark and unyielding. Her head felt odd—from the blood rushing to it while she was unconscious. Dammit.

She tried to reach up to undo her foot—but what good would that do? She’d fall.

A ledge, of some kind… the wreckage of the radio tower was all around her but there was a ledge just a bit away, with part of the ladder for the stairs sticking out. If she could get some movement—swing, maybe?

Emma began to rock back and forth, forcing her body to move until she got a swinging motion, becoming a human pendulum. Back and forth… back and forth…

Strange shrieking screams seemed to echo around her as she swayed like some kind of reverse Tarzan. Were there… animals, of some kind, down here with her?

The creaking as she swung got louder. Whatever this cable or rope was attached to, it wasn’t going to hold for much longer.

She swung a final time, and felt the cable, rope, whatever she was attached to snap as the momentum carried her just within reach—

Emma seized the ladder rung just in time, squeezing tightly to maintain her grip as her body went right-side-up again.

Fuck, that was close.

She swung on the ladder like it was a set of monkey bars, working her way across until she could jump down onto a platform. This whole thing was rickety, ready to fall at any minute. She had to get onto solid ground.

“Noah?” Emma called. He’d been reaching for her when she fell, she remembered that. She couldn’t remember if he’d fallen too, though. “Noah!”

There was no answer. She peered down, but all she could see was the vague shape of the ground. No sign of Noah’s body.

There was a gigantic wrenching, creaking noise, and Emma stumbled back out of the way as the rest of the tower fell, crashing down into the space where she’d just been.

“Shit,” she whispered. She was shaking, and she couldn’t seem to get it to stop.

Okay, think Emma, think.

She turned and saw that she was at the entrance to some kind of tunnel. It looked like the ride at Disneyland—Thunder Mountain.

Could this be a mine shaft?

Nicholas had told her that there’d used to be mines up in the mountain, owned by his family. But Nick had told her a lot of crazy things in the end. Emma hadn’t said anything, but she’d suspected that Lucy wasn’t the only one in the family who’d been checked into a mental hospital.

Still, it looked like this particular story was true.

Emma grabbed a wooden beam and tore a strip of fabric off the bottom of her shirt, wrapping it around one end of the beam and then dipping it in some oil drums, then sticking it in one of the smoldering piles of fire from the tower wreckage.

Now that she had a torch, she could see into the mines.

She was fully aware it might be stupid to go into these. She’d get lost real easily. Was this where Jess and Amy had ended up? Was this why they’d never been found?

But it wasn’t like she had another choice. What was she supposed to do, just sit at the edge of a cliff in the vain hope that someone found her? If she got through the mines, she could find a way back to the lodge. There had to be a map or something around here somewhere.

It was still painfully dark, even with the torch. Every so often she could hear a distant shriek, or the sound of something skittering along. But every time she looked, there was nothing.

After about twenty minutes of walking—according to her watch—she found an elevator area. Okay, great, maybe it would take her up to the surfa—

Up above her on a walkway there was a roar and a burst of flame. Emma clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle her instinctive scream. What was that!?

She doused the torch and hid in the elevator, waiting. After a moment, she began to hear footsteps. No, boot steps, heavy ones.

Emma shrank further back into the shadows as a figure walked past. They were heavily wrapped up for the winter and carrying—holy shit, was that a flamethrower?

That must have been the fire she’d seen, and the roar. A flamethrower had to make sound to operate, didn’t it?

Whoever this person was, they looked like bad news. Emma waited until they’d passed her by and had gone on down another tunnel before slipping out and heading in the opposite direction, down a different tunnel.

Suddenly she heard someone—the person—calling after her.

“Wait! Get back here!”

Emma took off running. She could hear the person behind her, but they were slowed down by their flamethrower and she had the advantage. She got to a fork in the tunnels—

What the fuck was what!?

Emma screamed instinctively and dodged as a gray, skeletal creature, with elongated limbs, landed in front of her and gave a horrifying scream-roar, one that seemed to come out of the bowels of the earth.

She sprinted down the other tunnel, relieved to see an elevator. Fuck yes, she could ride it to the surface!

Emma jumped in, yanking on the lever. Please work please work please work…

Yes!

The elevator lurched and rumbled but it carried her up. Emma forced herself to breathe deeply. That—that wasn’t human, and it wasn’t animal. It wasn’t a psycho, either, it wasn’t whoever had killed Nick. There was something else on this mountain, some kind of monster.

The elevator lurched to a stop in front of what looked like an old conveyor belt system for loading rocks. Emma moved to step out—

And heard something breathing just over her shoulder, on the other side of the flimsy elevator wall.

She held her breath, thinking, oddly, of _Jurassic Park._

Don’t move, it can’t see you if you don’t move…

It felt like her heart was going to beat out of her chest. She could hear the low growl the creature gave whenever it breathed in or out, she could smell its rancid breath, like rotting meat…

The creature leapt away, and Emma sprinted out of the elevator.

Behind her she heard that awful scream-roar of the creature coming after her, leaping and spider-climbing along the walls of the structure. Oh, please oh please, she just had to get away. She didn’t even know where away was, or where she was headed, she had no plan other than run.

The creature was banging at the walls, splintering wood, supernaturally strong. Emma’s lungs burned and she nearly tripped over old equipment, barrels, dodging hanging chains and hooks but she had to keep moving, no matter what.

Up ahead, there, it was—well it wasn’t a zipline originally, she could guarantee that. It looked like it had once been part of a sort of pulley system for cargo, to get it down the mountain.

But if she could reach it, it would do just fine as a zipline to get away.

She ran, stumbling, dodging boxes, trying to stay a few steps ahead—

The creature burst out of the wall to her right, landing in front of her. It towered over her, gray and unholy, looking diseased and festering, its eyes somehow dead and alive all at once.

Emma’s stomach heaved and she felt her dinner shoot halfway up her throat, almost choking her.

The creature grabbed her face with huge clawed hands, claws like untended fingernails, letting out a howl…

It was so odd, she thought. For a moment, in the moonlight, the face of the creature looked almost like—

Two claws stabbed downwards into her eyes. Emma screamed, pain shooting through her, her world plunged into darkness, pain, pain, pain…

And then nothing.

Emma’s body slumped in the creature’s hands and the creature purred in triumph. Its prize cradled in his hands, it spider-climbed up the wall.

Time to add this meal to its lair.

 

* * *

 

It was dark as hell in this basement. Flynn’s flashlight beam only went so far and gave them just a narrow strip of light. Lucy felt stupid for continuing to cling to him, but she’d seen plenty of horror movies and they’d already been separated once—no way was she letting that happen again.

“How big is this place?” Flynn hissed.

“I don’t know,” Lucy admitted, keeping her voice quiet. “It used to be some kind of hotel, Mom told me. Shut down in the fifties.”

There were boxes of random stuff everywhere, and Lucy felt like every single one could be hiding a psycho behind it. Her gaze darted all over the room, every shadow making her spine tense and her leg muscles coil up, ready to leap away.

It was starting to feel like she and Flynn were the only two people alive in the world, and not in a cute romantic way, but in a terrifying, you’ll never find your friends kind of way.

Where was Wyatt? Had that psycho done anything to him? And what about Rufus and Jiya, up in the couples’ cabin? Were they just having a grand old time in front of the fire, completely unaware, or had the psycho gotten them too?

Lucy hoped everyone was okay. Especially—selfishly—Wyatt.

Her hand slipped into Flynn’s, interlocking their fingers, and he squeezed tightly. “It’s okay,” he whispered, leading her down yet another unexplored hallway.

Lucy knew that he was lying to comfort her. He had no way of knowing if things were going to be okay. But she appreciated the effort he was making anyway. He had to be scared, too, and at least one of them was able to keep their head about it.

And then she saw something move up ahead.

“Flynn!” she squeaked, squeezing his hand.

Flynn had been staring at a shelf and turned—but the figure was already gone. If it even was a figure. “What?”

“There was—something. Maybe someone.”

“Wyatt?”

“I don’t know, it’s gone now.”

Flynn frowned, staring down the hallway. “What, whatever it was, I’d like to know if it was the one filming us.”

“What?”

Flynn pushed aside a box on the shelf to reveal a small hidden video camera.

Rage rose up in Lucy, choking her, and she stormed over, snatching up the camera. “Hey, asshole, is this what you want? Huh? You want to film us?”

“Lucy.” Flynn pulled her away from the camera.

“We’re not playing your sick game!” Lucy snapped, turning the camera around so it faced the wall. “Film that!”

Flynn led her away. “C’mon, don’t get angry, it’s what he wants.”

Lucy could feel hot tears pricking at her eyes and she wiped at them ferociously with the back of her hand. “I just wanted to spend some time with you guys and remember my sister.”

“I know.”

“I want Wyatt safe.”

“I know.”

“I want my sister back.”

Flynn pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly. “I know, Lucy. I know.”

She wanted to just sink into his arms and never let go, but they couldn’t do that. Not here where they weren’t safe. Lucy pulled back, taking a deep breath. “We need to find Wyatt.”

Flynn nodded, pulling away, but he didn’t object when she took his hand again to head down the hallway.

“This is going to sound crazy,” Lucy noted as they got to the end and had to turn right—Jesus this place was a maze— “but I feel like we’re following someone’s… game, or something.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, Wyatt wasn’t anywhere in the house, so we had to go into the basement. Then I start seeing things, and so we follow those things, and along the way there are cameras set up to watch us. It’s like a game or a movie or something.”

“Someone’s toying with us, all right,” Flynn noted.

Lucy jumped as she saw another figure at the end of the hall. “Fuck, Flynn, look. Please tell me you saw it that time.”

Flynn looked, then shook his head.

“I swear I saw something. It almost looked like…” Lucy cut herself off before she could say _Amy_.

“It’s not a ghost, whatever it is.”

“Maybe this person wants us to think it is?”

Flynn kept a hold of her hand as he led her down the corridor. It ended in a heavy metal door. He peered through the glass window in the middle.

“Someone’s in there,” he whispered.

“Who?”

“I don’t know, they’re in a chair, facing the wall, I can’t see.”

“Could it be Wyatt?”

Flynn grabbed the door handle, wrenching the door open with a grunt. “There’s only one way to find out.”

Lucy followed him inside, shivering. It was cold in here, no heat. “Wyatt?” she whispered.

Flynn grabbed the chair, spinning it around, then jumped back in surprise, smacking his hand over his own mouth to cover up his yelp.

It wasn’t Wyatt, it was a dummy, with a knife in the chest and fake blood all over it. It had a wig made to look like Wyatt’s hair, though, and it was wearing Wyatt’s clothes.

“Fuck,” Lucy whispered. Her stomach was churning. God, where was Wyatt? What was this?

Flynn turned to look at her, and then fixed on something behind her. “Lu—!”

Something covered her mouth, a cloth, and she smelled something sickly sweet, and then the world went black again.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt approached the door slowly, cautiously. The banging stopped after a moment, and he braced himself…

“Hey!” Oh thank God, he knew that voice. “Anyone in here! Hey! Open the door!”

Wyatt yanked the door open. “Rufus?”

It was Rufus all right, but Rufus covered in dirt and bruises and wearing just a shirt and jeans.

“You look like hell, man.”

Rufus glared at him. “Thanks.”

Wyatt put his hands up, apologetic. “Sorry. What the hell happened to you?”

“Where are the others?”

“I don’t know. I was taking a bath and someone stole my clothes, and the house is all dark and empty, and—something weird’s going on here, man, I found these notes that Nick had? Did you know he was seeing a therapist too?”

“I thought it was just Lucy.”

Wyatt shook his head. “No, Nick was too and he had some kind of plan but his therapist—I read his phone, the therapist said it wasn’t a good plan, and I think—I think Nick paid some psycho or teamed up with him or something and it went wrong. Like, really wrong.”

“It went wrong all right,” Rufus snapped bitterly. “Jiya’s dead.”

Wyatt’s dinner decided to consider making a reappearance. “Dead? How?”

“She was attacked.” Rufus closed the door behind him and locked it. “By something, it dragged her into these old mines—I tried to get to her but she—she fell and…”

Rufus trailed off, shaking his head, and then wiped at his eyes. “But I—I followed the mines back to here. They’re all connected, and I saw some maps, looks like it shut down in the fifties with a cave in or something.”

“Jesus. We have to get to the others.” To Lucy and Flynn.

Rufus nodded. “This person or thing or whatever, it moves fucking fast. We gotta get off this mountain.”

“You want—I suck at this sort of thing but do you want a hug?”

Rufus shook his head. “Later. Right now I want to catch this son of a bitch.”

Wyatt could get behind that.

 

* * *

 

Lucy came to slowly. Fuck, her head hurt. The world was so fuzzy…

“Lucy?” It was Flynn. “Lucy, hey, breathe nice and deep for me okay? Don’t try to move.”

She blinked a few times, the world falling into focus, and she realized…

She couldn’t move.

Lucy looked down, and saw that she was strapped to a chair.

_She was strapped to a chair._

She looked up and saw Flynn across from her, on the other side of a small table. He had one hand strapped down, like hers, but the other was free. “Lucy, just breathe, okay?”

“What’s going on?” Panic was clawing at her chest again like a dragon of ice.

“I don’t know,” Flynn admitted. “I don’t know, but it’s not going to help if you don’t breathe, okay? Lucy?”

She nodded, trying to breathe.

“Ah, welcome back.”

That voice, it was that goddamn voice, the same person who’d made Flynn choose, who’d made Flynn kill Nicholas—

“I’m afraid I made your last choice too easy, Flynn.”

“What do you mean?” Flynn demanded. He was trying to undo his cuff with his free hand.

“Asking you to choose between someone you’ve never cared about and the woman you… well. I won’t spoil things. But I should have known it would be obvious to you. So how about something a little harder?”

A whirring sound started up above her head and Lucy craned her face upward.

Saws. More goddamn saws, up in the goddamn _ceiling_ , looking ready to come down at any moment.

“What is this, Jigsaw meets _The Pit and the Pendulum_?” she spat.

The psycho ignored her. “Flynn. If you look in front of you, on the table is a gun. It’s why I’ve left your hand free. You have a choice.”

“No,” Flynn said, already shaking his head.

“You can either kill Lucy, or kill yourself. Refuse to do either, and these saws will come down and kill you both.”

Lucy felt her dinner coming back up. “Garcia.”

Flynn picked up the gun, stared at it for a moment, and then looked at her. “Lucy…”

“No. No, Garcia, please—” Rage bubbled up in her again. “It’s not _fair_. It’s not fucking fair.”

“Of course it’s not fair,” Flynn replied. “Just—listen, Lucy, just stay calm. Wyatt’s around here somewhere, he’ll find you or you can find him—”

“You’re not leaving me. My dad left me, Amy left me, Amy’s gone I can’t lose you, I’m not losing one more person I love!” She yanked as hard as she could at the straps holding her down, feeling them chafe at her wrists. “I should’ve—I should’ve said something, I wasted all this time—”

“Hey, hey no.” Flynn shook his head, his eyes soft and dark. “Lucy, it wasn’t wasted, okay? Not a second I spent with you was wasted because I got to be with you, all right?”

She shook her head. “Don’t do this, don’t _do_ this—” She couldn’t lose him she couldn’t lose him, she was going to find this guy and she was going to tear him limb from limb, she was going to find who he loved and she was going to tie them to a table, she was going to make him _pay_ …

“And… Lucy?” Flynn sounded hesitant, unsure, for the first time. “You’ll tell Wyatt… you’ll tell him I…” He shook his head. “He already knows. And tell my mom I’m sorry.”

“Flynn…”

“I love you, okay? I—I love you.”

“Garcia!” She was yanking, yanking, yanking on her straps but it wasn’t—

Flynn put the gun to his head.

Lucy didn’t so much make herself scream as the sound worked up out of her throat, flinging itself in rage into the air, as Flynn pulled the trigger.


	11. Chapter 11

_The old, the young, the rich, the poor, all alike to me you know…_

 

* * *

 

 

Wyatt jumped as a gunshot went off. “Did you hear that?”

Rufus frowned. “Yeah I heard that. Let’s go.”

They hurried back up through the house, trying to track the sound. “I think it came from here,” Rufus said, pointing down a dark section of what used to be the hotel.

Wyatt hurried with him, his heart pounding. He could hear another sound too—a scream.

Lucy’s scream.

“Lucy!” He picked up speed, rushing down and bursting through the doors of what he guessed had once been the hotel dining room.

Two people were strapped to chairs on either side of a table. In one of them was Lucy, sobbing, yanking angrily at straps that kept her down.

In the other was Flynn, staring at a gun in his hand, his mouth open in shock.

“What the fuck?” Flynn blurted out.

Someone stepped out of the shadows and Wyatt instinctively yelled, “Behind you!”

Flynn whipped his arm around, firing once, twice, three times, but the person kept walking.

It was the asshole that had chased Wyatt around.

“Oh, Flynn.” The guy shook his head, knocking the gun out of Flynn’s hand. “Haven’t you ever heard of blanks?”

Lucy screamed again, this time in unadulterated rage. “Get over here,” she snapped. “Get over here so I can kill you—”

“Aww, would you really do that?” the guy asked, yanking at his mask until it came off. “You’d kill your own cousin?”

“Nicholas?” Wyatt whispered. But he’d seen… on the video…

Flynn and Lucy stared too. “You—but you—” Lucy spluttered.

“My head was real, but the rest was a dummy filled with pig guts,” Nicholas explained. “I had a hole that I stuck my head through. The saw was rigged to go to me no matter what Flynn chose.” He grinned, and Wyatt swore he could see madness in his eyes. “I had everything ready to go. Clues for you… a whole storyline about a janitor, all of it.”

“Why,” Flynn snapped. “Why the fuck—”

“Why?” Nicholas seemed to consider this. “Because it was fun.”

“You stinking son of a bitch,” Wyatt snarled. He stormed over, shoving Nicholas aside to undo Lucy’s straps. She jumped up the moment they were undone, grabbing Wyatt and flinging her arms around him, pressing her face into his neck.

“I thought you’d died,” she whispered. He could feel her shaking.

He wrapped his arms around her. “Takes more than your idiot cousin to kill me, baby doll.”

Lucy squeezed him tightly, then turned and all but flung herself at Flynn. “Don’t ever, ever sacrifice yourself for me again, Garcia Flynn, don’t you ever—”

Flynn held her, murmuring soothingly, but Wyatt could see that he was pale. Anger twisted in his gut. “What did he do to you?”

Lucy turned so that she could look Wyatt in the eye. “He—he told Flynn to either shoot himself or me, or he’d kill us both.”

That was why Flynn had been staring at the gun like that when they’d come in. He’d shot himself and was wondering why it hadn’t worked.

Wyatt glared at Nicholas. “You sick, twisted—”

“Murderer,” Rufus growled.

Lucy and Flynn turned to look at him, as if noticing him for the first time. “Murder?” Nicholas asked, blanching.

Rufus strode up to Nicholas and pulled out—oh shit that was a real gun. “What did you do to Jiya, huh? What did she ever do to you? You killed her!”

“What, no…” Nicholas shook his head. “No, no, you and Jiya were later, I was going to set some booby traps for when you headed back to—to the lodge—”

“Don’t lie to me,” Rufus snapped. “She’s dead and it’s your fault!”

“Hold on,” Flynn said, undoing the strap that pinned his other hand. “What time was this? Rufus? When did you get back to the lodge?”

“She was attacked about, I don’t know, about an hour ago. I got trapped in some damn mines and found this creepy sanitorium…”

“Then it couldn’t have been Nicholas,” Flynn said, standing up and rubbing at his wrist. “An hour ago was when he knocked out Lucy and me for the first time, did his saw trick.”

“He attacked me about half an hour ago,” Wyatt added.

Flynn’s glare at Nicholas intensified as he walked over to Wyatt, pulling him into a hug. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, no—I’m fine.”

“Like hell you are.” Flynn’s hold tightened on Wyatt and he let himself cling back, let himself sink into Flynn and soak up his warmth.

Flynn spoke again. “There’s no way he could have gotten all the way down to you, and terrorized me and Lucy and Wyatt at the same time.”

“I don’t care,” Rufus replied. “I want him away from the rest of us. I want him restrained, and we’re calling the police and getting his ass in jail for this.”

Wyatt forced himself to pull away from Flynn, reaching out to try and touch Rufus, but Rufus shook him off, too angry to accept comfort.

“Oh, you bet I’m going to have quite a few words to say to Carol about this,” Lucy vowed, glaring at Nicholas. “I cried over you, you jerk, I was upset for you!”

“Hey, now, you should be thanking me,” Nicholas replied, some of his usual cockiness returning. “I got Flynn to admit he loved you, right?”

Lucy glared at him for a moment, then strode over to Flynn and kissed him.

Wyatt’s stomach lurched all over again as Flynn froze, eyes still open, clearly in shock, before he grabbed Lucy like a drowning man and hauled her against him, letting her kiss him as ferociously as she wanted to.

Fuck. Wyatt could easily guess where he stood now. He should’ve been bolder, should’ve been straight (ha) with Flynn when he’d had the chance, should’ve told Lucy how he felt…

Lucy pulled away, leaving a stunned Flynn in her wake, and glared at Nicholas. “Satisfied?”

Flynn’s eyes flickered over to Wyatt, and Wyatt forced himself to look away. He wasn’t going to be a jerk about it, as much as the ugly part of him wanted to be.

“I say we take him somewhere away from us,” Rufus said, grabbing Nicholas and yanking his arms behind him.

“Whoa,” Wyatt blurted out before he could stop himself. “Um. Rufus. Buddy.”

“We can’t trust him,” Rufus snapped. “I say we put him out in the shed, call the police.”

Lucy gripped the edge of the table. Her initial rush of defiance and rage seemed to have faded, and she was pale, her hands shaking a little. Flynn noticed it too, his hand pressing lightly between Lucy’s shoulders, rubbing. “I’ll go with you,” he said, looking Rufus dead in the eye. “We’ll both go.”

Rufus glared at Flynn for a moment, then stepped away from Nick. “Fine.”

Wyatt could see Flynn’s chest tightening as he held in a sigh, then he grabbed the straps that had kept Lucy to the chair and used them to tie Nick’s hands behind his back. “So you don’t go knocking anyone out again,” he growled quietly.

Lucy was still shaking. Wyatt couldn’t help himself—he walked over and hugged her. Lucy sagged into him, her head on his shoulder. “I think I need… I have anxiety medication, I think I should… take it.”

“You two stay here,” Flynn said. “Have Lucy drink some water, have her do breathing exercises, whatever she needs.”

Wyatt nodded.

Flynn gave him a wane smile, reaching out and putting his hand on Wyatt’s shoulder, squeezing gently. “It’ll be okay. Emma and Noah were radioing for help, police’ll be here soon.”

Wyatt nodded again, his throat tight. “Right, yeah.”

Flynn looked like he might say something else, his tongue flicking out over his bottom lip the way that it did when he wanted to speak but was unsure if he should—but then he was stepping away. “We’ll be right back.”

Lucy kept her head buried in Wyatt’s shoulder until the other three had left.

“Let’s get you upstairs, where it’s warm,” Wyatt told her, rubbing her back. Just because she wasn’t in love with him didn’t mean they weren’t friends, didn’t mean he was going to stop caring for her. Especially right now.

“Do you think he killed them?” Lucy whispered. “Do you think he killed Amy and Jess?”

Wyatt hugged her tighter. “He said he didn’t kill anyone. I think this was—some kind of sick game to him. He filmed his fake death and he filmed me in the bath, I think for him it was about getting our reactions. And the timeline doesn’t match for whatever got Jiya.”

“You think whatever got Jiya got them?”

“I don’t know. I just know that something doesn’t match up, and there’s still unanswered questions, and I don’t feel safe. So let’s get you upstairs, and let’s all stay together and wait for the police to come.”

Lucy let him take her back up to the living room and get her medication and some water. “I hated being in that hospital but I did need therapy,” she admitted, tugging Wyatt down onto the couch to sit with her.

Wyatt wasn’t sure what to do when Lucy curled into him, taking his arm and draping it over her shoulder. “Um…”

“Why she didn’t see anything wrong with Nicholas is anybody’s guess,” Lucy added bitterly.

“Right.” Wyatt gave up and just let himself be manhandled and used as a pillow. “Lucy?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m happy for you, and Flynn.”

Lucy looked up at him, an odd, tiny smile on her face. “You ridiculous boy.”

“What?”

Lucy laid her head back down on his shoulder. “When he thought he was going to die, Flynn wanted me to tell you that he loved you. He said that you knew, but I guess he overestimated your observational skills.”

Wyatt’s stomach twisted. “Really?”

“Really.” Lucy reached up, her fingers lightly brushing along his jaw. “Maybe talk to him about it when he comes back.”

Wyatt looked out the window, and then glanced at the clock. Wait.

“Lucy?”

“Yeah?”

“…how long have Noah and Emma been gone?”

Lucy followed his gaze to look at the clock. “It’s not that long of a walk to the ski lift and back,” she whispered.

“But Nicholas said he hadn’t dealt with them yet. They should be back by now.”

Wyatt’s stomach churned. “We need Flynn and Rufus back here.”

He had a horrible feeling that whatever had gotten Jiya had gotten Noah and Emma as well.


	12. Chapter 12

_No wealth, no land, no silver nor gold, nothing satisfies me but your soul…_

 

* * *

 

 

“For the last time,” Nicholas snarled, “I didn’t do anything to Jiya! This is unnecessary!”

“You threatened to saw Lucy in half with a saw,” Flynn replied, “Pretty damn sure that was unnecessary too.”

Rufus could still feel twisting anger in the pit of his stomach, grief hot in his eyes, but he was glad he was the one holding the gun. Flynn was furious. Rufus had seen Flynn angry plenty of times, usually at Wyatt when the two of them were having another spat over something stupid. But he’d never seen Flynn like this, shaking, his voice cold.

“You guys can’t just leave me in the shed! Tied up!”

“You can’t be trusted,” Rufus replied.

“For the last time—”

“You didn’t do anything to Jiya, yeah yeah,” Rufus rolled his eyes. “But this is kind of for your personal safety. You think it’s smart for you to be around Lucy or Wyatt right now?”

“I think it’s best for both of us you’re not near me right now,” Flynn said.

“Yeah, I’m not letting you have this gun,” Rufus noted.

“Like a gun is the only way I can kill someone,” Flynn said, rolling his eyes.

“All I did was—” Nicholas started, but Flynn wouldn’t let him finish.

“All you did was take your unstable cousin and make her life worse. How long did it take you to set up that whole mess, huh? Projecting ghosts?”

“Projecting—what?” Nicholas sounded confused.

“Ghosts. The people she was seeing, you had her questioning her sanity, Nick.”

Nicholas stared at Flynn, uncomprehending. “I had a bunch of stuff set up for Wyatt, man, but I didn’t set up any ghosts or whatever for you and Lucy. I’m telling you, I’m not doing everything you’re saying I’m doing.”

“So you’re only fifty percent an asshole,” Rufus said. “Got it.”

They got Nicholas to the shed and tied him to one of the poles. “You can stay here until the police arrive,” Rufus told him, grabbing one of the heaters Nicholas had apparently installed in the shed and dragging it over so that the asshole wouldn’t freeze to death.

When the police arrived… he’d have to tell them about Jiya. There would need to be a search for her body. He’d need to call her mom in Lebanon, fuck, so soon after Jiya’s dad had passed on…

Rufus swallowed around the hot lump in his throat. “Flynn, let’s go.”

“One last thing.” Flynn cocked back his arm and punched Nicholas once, hard.

Nicholas’s head snapped back, and he spat blood. Flynn shook his hand out, grinning savagely. “There. Now we’re on our way to getting even.”

“Don’t pretend like choosing to kill me was a chore for you.”

“I’m not a psychopath, I didn’t want to kill anyone,” Flynn replied.

“I did you a favor, you never would’ve told Lucy how you felt otherwise.”

Flynn crouched down, his face twisted in anger. Rufus grabbed the back of Flynn’s shirt, trying to haul him back. “He’s not worth it, Flynn.”

“You terrified your own cousin,” Flynn growled. “She mourned you, and you made her fear for her life. You made her watch me shoot myself, you did God only knows what to Wyatt and you made us think he was dead. You’re going to get arrested, and you’re going to court, and I’m making sure that your sorry ass never ends up getting any of the things you want in life. That political career you’re always talking about? That’s going to be gone. You wanted to hit us where it hurts, you wanted to make us watch what we cared about go away, then I will do the same to you.”

Flynn stood up then. Nicholas glared up at him but Rufus could see from how pale he was that Nicholas was scared. Flynn was a determined guy, and his mom had worked for NASA back in the day. Rufus wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of that family, even if they weren’t old money like the Keynes and the Prestons.

“Let’s go,” Flynn muttered.

Rufus didn’t see much reason to stay, so he followed, leaving Nicholas alone in the shed.

 

* * *

 

Flynn glanced at Rufus as they walked back to the lodge. Rufus’s face was hard, angry, but in that tight way that meant he was trying not to shatter. Flynn hadn’t seen that look on Rufus’s face before but he’d seen it on his mom’s face, on Wyatt and Lucy’s faces after Jess and Amy last year.

“I’m sorry. About Jiya. I know it—”

“You don’t know,” Rufus replied. “No offense or anything but you really, really don’t know.”

Flynn kept silent, scanning the woods. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching them, hadn’t been able to shake it since he and Wyatt had taken the ski lift up, and anyway, he didn’t think Rufus wanted him to say anything right now.

“You—whatever that asshole did to you and Lucy, I’m not saying it wasn’t rough, but you didn’t—you didn’t have to watch the person you love—she was right there, right _there_ , and…” Rufus shook his head, as if to get rid of the thoughts.

Flynn knew he was right. The stab of fear he’d felt when he’d thought it was Wyatt’s body in that chair, when he’d seen that saw possibly heading for Lucy, when he’d had that gun in his hand. But all of that fear was nothing compared to guilt, to despair, to loss.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated.

Rufus sighed, his shoulders slumping. “I know. And thanks. I can’t say it makes it better but… thanks.”

Flynn nodded, and kept silent the rest of the walk.

 

* * *

 

It took a long time for her to stop shaking.

Lucy hadn’t realized that she had anxiety until her therapist had helped her to understand it. She’d kept telling herself that she was fine, that she could handle it—and then she’d ended up vomiting into the toilet at two in the morning, shaking, feeling like she couldn’t breathe, and it had to be explained that no, Lucy, sometimes your mind tricks you into thinking you’re not fighting a war when that’s exactly what it’s doing. Your mind likes to downplay what you’re going through, Lucy, it’ll tell you that you should be stronger when you’re already giving all you have. It’s okay to cry, Lucy.

Sometimes it felt like that had been what she was doing all her life. Warring with her mom, with Mom’s expectations, warring with herself, warring with what she wanted. Never resting.

But for now, Wyatt was holding her, rubbing her back gently, and there was nothing else. She could rest. She could cry. She could shut out all those other voices.

“You’re safe with me, Luce,” Wyatt told her.

She clung to him harder. “I thought I’d lost you. I thought I was gonna lose Flynn.”

“You haven’t lost me.” Wyatt rocked back and forth slowly on the couch. “And you’re not going to lose Flynn, either.”

Footsteps echoed and then she felt a large hand carding through her hair, a colder hand, not Wyatt’s. “How’s she doing?” It was Flynn.

“Dozing.”

Flynn sank down onto the couch on her other side. She didn’t want to wake up fully, she didn’t want to stop resting. If she woke up she had to think about Nicholas and Amy and oh, God, Amy…

She opened her eyes as Wyatt shifted her over to curl up into Flynn. Watched Flynn reach over, brushing Wyatt’s hair back. “What did he do to you?”

“Chased after me.”

“Wyatt.”

“…nothing like what he did to you and Lucy, okay?”

She blinked, opening her eyes more, forcing herself to wake up and look at Wyatt. He looked away, his face going pink. Off to the side she could see Rufus pacing up and down, occasionally wiping at his eyes.

“Wyatt,” she whispered, reaching out and taking his hand.

“Look, he filmed me while I was in the bath, okay? He took my clothes, I think he wanted me to walk around, y’know, but I broke into his room and took some of his. And he showed me the video, and the video of him fake-dying, only it looked real, and then he chased me. That’s it.”

She squeezed his hand. Wyatt squeezed back.

Flynn ran his hand through Wyatt’s hair again. “That’s not nothing.”

“What did he do to you?” Wyatt was squeezing Lucy’s hand tightly, looking at Flynn with wide eyes. “When Rufus and I came in you had the gun and Nick said it was loaded with blanks, but we heard a shot…”

Lucy squeezed Wyatt’s hand back just as tightly. She’d hated that moment, seeing Flynn put the gun to his head, knowing that he was willing to die for her. She had never asked for people to love her that much. She had never asked for that kind of sacrifice.

Flynn wrapped an arm around her, either to anchor her or to anchor himself, maybe both, she didn’t know, and he looked like he was about to say something—

And then there was a knock at the door.

 

* * *

 

Rufus whirled around, gun in his hand. Lucy squeezed Wyatt’s hand so tightly it felt like the bones in his hand were rearranging themselves. Flynn pulled away from both of them, standing up and looking over at Rufus.

“Emma and Noah?” Lucy whispered.

“They’d say who they were,” Wyatt replied, whispering as well.

Rufus looked over at Flynn. “You pull the door, I’ll hold up the gun?”

“I think that should be the other way around.”

Rufus looked at Flynn for a moment, looked at the gun, then handed the gun to Flynn and took up position behind the door, grabbing the handle. He nodded at Flynn, who held up the gun so that it would point at the head of whoever walked through the door.

Flynn nodded once, sharply, and Rufus turned the handle, yanking the door open.

A figure, wrapped up in jackets and scarves and wearing goggles, strode in. Flynn started to say something but the figure whacked the gun out of his hand, sending Flynn stumbling back.

Wyatt jumped up, his heart pounding. “Lucy, run!”

Lucy stumbled to her feet, getting behind Wyatt and gripping his shirt but not running. “I’m not leaving you two.”

Rufus yelled and tried to tackle the figure, but the person turned, backhanding him and sending him stumbling backwards as Flynn got his hands up like he was ready to box, putting himself between Wyatt and Lucy and the figure.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

The person took off their goggles and yanked their scarf down. Wyatt’s jaw dropped.

No offense meant, but he’d definitely been expecting a man.

“Denise Christopher,” the woman replied. “And you kids are toast.”


	13. Chapter 13

_The children prayed, the pastor preached, but time and mercy are out of your reach._

 

* * *

 

 

Everyone stared as the woman, Denise Christopher, set down her flamethrower and adjusted her scarf. “Sorry,” Rufus said, knowing he didn’t sound very sorry at all. “Who are you?”

Flynn moved back over to the couch, putting his hand on Wyatt’s knee. The action also squarely put Flynn’s body in front of Lucy, and half in front of Wyatt, the message clear: don’t try to come near either of them.

Denise raised an eyebrow at this. Rufus couldn’t be sure, but she looked amused. “If you really think you’d be able to stop me if I came at you, you’re welcome to try.”

Flynn looked a little abashed, and let Lucy pull him back until he was sitting properly on the couch. Lucy settled herself half on Flynn’s lap, half on Wyatt’s.

Rufus felt bad. He wasn’t sure what was going on with Lucy and Flynn, or with Wyatt, but Lucy looked like she’d seen a ghost and was still deciding if she was going to throw up or not.

Flynn put his arm around Wyatt’s shoulders, and Wyatt immediately sank into him. All three looked as exhausted as Rufus felt.

He looked over at Denise. “How are we toast? And you—what did you do to Jiya?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know who Jiya is,” Denise said. “Unless she’s the redhead.”

“Emma,” Flynn breathed.

“Friend of yours?”

Rufus shook his head. “Not exactly.”

“Well, maybe this will make it easier to handle.”

“What easier to handle?”

“The news that she’s dead.”

Wyatt went pale and Lucy started crying. Flynn kissed the top of her head and curved her into Wyatt, who held her and let her cry on his shoulder. “How did she die?” Flynn asked. “Did you kill her?”

“If I’d killed her, do you think I’d walk in here and announce it to you?”

“I don’t know what to think,” Rufus admitted. “I know I saw you. In the mines. I followed you to that old nuthouse. I know something went wrong with the miners, that they were trapped in a cave in and things went bad. But I still don’t know what attacked my girlfriend, or what’s attacking us, or what the hell is going on here.”

Denise sighed, looking exhausted. “This mountain, it’s sacred.”

That was what Jiya had said. Rufus’s stomach twisted.

“Once, it belonged to the Native Americans. To the people who knew how to respect it. It didn’t really belong to anyone, but at least we knew how to protect it. But then it was taken from us, and it was said that it belonged to the Rittenhouse Company. They renamed the mountain.”

Lucy sucked in a breath. “Yeah, that—that’s a family name. That’s the company my mom inherited.”

“Then you’ve inherited a dark legacy.” Denise sat down heavily on the coffee table. “I came to America when I was just a baby, but we have our own stories in India. The rakshasa, for example. So when I met my… my wife, and I learned about her tribe’s legends, I respected them. We all did.”

“Your wife?” Wyatt asked.

“Michelle.” A shadow of a smile crossed Denise’s face. “She was a part of the tribe on her mother’s side. Grew up with the stories, taught them to our children.”

Rufus could hear the grief in her voice, the same one that he now carried in his chest. “What happened to her?”

“They got her,” Denise said. “The Wendigos.”

“The… what?” Lucy asked.

“Weren’t they on an episode of _Supernatural_?” Wyatt asked.

“…you watch _Supernatural_ ,” Flynn said, like he’d just been told Wyatt was a Scientologist.

“Just like the first two seasons!” Wyatt protested.

“Wendigos,” Denise said, ignoring the two boys as they continued to quietly bicker, “are evil spirits. They live on this mountain, and those who disturb it face their wrath. It’s the way that nature tries to fight back when man grabs for too much.”

“…how does it fight back?” Rufus asked, knowing he’d hate the answer.

“The spirits possess those who consume human flesh,” Denise announced.

There was a moment of silence.

“Well that’s fucked up,” Wyatt said.

Lucy elbowed him.

“Even though we hated the people who took our land from us, Michelle’s people fought hard to prevent the mountain from creating events that would lead to such a thing happening. We knew that if the Wendigo spirits were released, they would cause death and destruction. And it worked, until 1954.”

“The cave in,” Rufus blurted out. Oh, God, it all made terrible sense. “There were thirty miners trapped but only eleven rescued. The ones that were rescued—they were oddly healthy. They weren’t emaciated.”

“They… they ate, the other nineteen?” Lucy whispered.

Denise nodded. “And so they were possessed, and transformed.”

“B-but how has nobody heard about them?”

“Why do you think my tribe has been fighting so hard to keep your mother from opening a hotel here?” Denise snapped. “We just managed to suppress the massacre the last time, keep it from spreading down the mountain. If a person is possessed by a Wendigo they don’t change immediately. If someone was brought down, to civilization…”

Rufus’s knees nearly buckled as he remembered how fast that creature had moved. How quickly it had taken Jiya from him. If one of those things got to a city…

“You can see why we fought so hard for this hotel not to go through,” Denise continued. “I’ve given my life to try and keep them controlled. I was hunting the one that killed my family when I saw your sister.”

Rufus whipped his head around to look at Lucy. “A-Amy?” she whispered. “You saw her?”

“I tried to save her.” Denise sighed heavily and scrubbed a hand across her face. “She and Jess—I didn’t know them at the time but we’ve all heard since then, with your rangers up here looking for them—they were spotted by the Wendigo. It went after them. I burned it but the two girls had fallen off the cliff. I reached for them, but…” She shook her head. “They fell.”

Lucy’s eyes filled with tears and she buried her face into Flynn’s shoulder, shaking.

“At least they died quickly,” Rufus offered.

“You four need to get off this mountain,” Denise told them.

“We can’t,” Wyatt said. “We’d have to get to the cable car and we’d never make it in time.”

“Then stay here. Is there a basement?”

Flynn, Wyatt, and Lucy all looked annoyed. “Unfortunately,” Flynn muttered.

“Then get in it. Lock yourselves up, wait until dawn. That’s when they’ll go back into hiding.”

Lucy sat straight up. “Oh my God, Nicholas!”

Rufus felt sick. “We left him in the shed, tied up…” The guy would be a sitting duck.

Denise shook her head. “If you left him out there, then he’s already dead.”

“No.” Lucy shook her head. “If I—if I go home without him, after coming home without Amy, my mom—my mom sh-she’s gonna be so upset—”

Flynn and Wyatt looked at each other. Rufus didn’t know the whole story with Lucy’s mom, but what he did know, he didn’t like.

“On a more practical note,” he piped up, “Nicholas has the key to the ski lift. Cable car. Whatever it’s called. You gave it to him when we all got here, remember Lucy?”

Lucy buried her face in her hands. “Fuck,” she said, the sound muffled. She looked up at Rufus. “We won’t be able to turn the cable car on without it.”

Wyatt stood up. “I’ll go get him. It’s not a long walk to the shed. I can make it.”

“Not alone you can’t,” Flynn insisted. “I’ll go with you.”

Lucy shook her head but didn’t say anything. She was staring ahead, wide-eyed, as if looking at someone. Rufus could easily imagine she was picturing her mom’s angry face.

“Neither of you will last a minute.” Denise sighed, then stood up. “I’ll go with you.”

It wasn’t clear which person she was talking to. Wyatt looked at Flynn, who looked right back at him.

“You’re not going,” Flynn hissed.

“You don’t get to make that decision for me.”

“Wyatt—”

“You’ve been through enough tonight, Flynn. I can do this.”

Flynn stood up and yanked Wyatt in, pressing their foreheads together. The two of them just breathed together for a moment, and oddly, it made Rufus miss Jiya more than if Flynn had kissed Wyatt instead.

He looked away.

Wyatt pulled away from Flynn and walked up to Denise. “I’m ready, ma’am.”

Denise hefted the flamethrower back on. “All right. But then you kids stay safe in the basement, got it?”

They all nodded. As the two headed for the door, Rufus looked over at Flynn.

Flynn shook his head at him. Over Lucy’s shoulder so she couldn’t see, he mouthed, _probably already gone_.

Rufus couldn’t help but agree—and worry that Wyatt was risking himself for a dead body.

 

* * *

 

Wyatt had just reached the door when he heard Lucy call out his name.

He turned, letting out an _oomph_ as she ran into him, hugging him tightly.

“Come back,” she whispered, and then she took his face in her hands and kissed him.

He responded—how could he not—wrapping his arms around her and kissing her back like it was the only chance he’d ever get.

Maybe it was.

Lucy’s grip was tight enough to bruise. “I told Flynn, and I’m telling you—I can’t lose one more person I love. Stay safe. Come back to us.”

He nodded, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “Sure thing, Luce.” And, because he might not be able to tell her again… “I love you.”

She kissed him again, then pulled back.

Denise opened the door, and he followed her into the snow.

 

* * *

 

Fuck, it was cold out.

“Stay silent, and if I tell you to do something, you do it,” Denise whispered. She passed him a shotgun. Damn, how many weapons did this woman have on her? “You know how to use this?”

He wouldn’t be a Logan boy if he didn’t. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Be ready.”

It was dark as pitch out here. Only the stars lit the way. The wind howled, snow flurrying around them. The path to the shed had never felt so long, or so arduous.

“Why the flamethrower?” Wyatt whispered.

“They hate fire,” Denise replied, just as quiet. “They also can’t see you if you hold still.”

“What, like _Jurassic Park_?”

Denise sighed. “Everyone makes that reference. Yes. They see the world through… some combination of heat-seeking and movement-based sight. I’m not sure.”

That sounded terrifying.

“Shotgun blasts stun them, but don’t kill them,” Denise went on. “Their big advantage is their speed. They’re about as strong as you or me. But with their claws and their speed… they’re deadly.”

The moment they reached the shed, Wyatt knew that something was wrong.

The door was hanging open.

“Oh, no,” he whispered, stepping inside.

Where presumably Nicholas had been, at one of the posts, there was now dried blood.

“I’m sorry,” Denise said quietly. “But your friend is gone.”

“He’s not my friend,” Wyatt replied. Nicholas was the farthest thing from a friend Wyatt had. “But he’s got the key to the cable car. We’re trapped up here without it. And his aunt, Lucy’s mom—she’ll blame Lucy if she comes back without him.”

Denise shook her head. “They’ll have taken Nicholas back to their lair.”

“Their lair?”

“They don’t eat you right away. They might kill you, but they’ll take your body back to their lair to eat slowly. Over time.”

Wyatt felt hot bile rising in his throat. “Um. Okay.” So the key would still be on Nicholas’s body. In the lair. “Then we have to get there.”

“No.” Denise’s voice was firm. “Wait until dawn, then find another way down the mountain. I’ll do what I can to come back and help you.”

They exited the shed, and Wyatt was about to tell her that she could take that ‘waiting until dawn’ nonsense and shove it up her ass, when Denise froze.

Wyatt froze too.

“Don’t move,” Denise whispered.

Wyatt’s blood froze as he heard something rustling in the trees above them. That—that wasn’t a squirrel.

He hadn’t realized how hard it was to stay still until just now. Every shiver of his body threatened to betray him, every breath felt too deep. His feet subtly rocked back and forth as he struggled not to shift his weight, to keep his balance.

“On the count of three,” Denise whispered. “I want you to run for the lodge. One… two…”

There was an inhuman shriek that seemed to rattle Wyatt’s very bones.

“Three!” Denise yelled, and Wyatt took off as she grabbed the nozzle of her flamethrower.

Something sailed towards Wyatt only to redirect as a blast of fire came at it. Each breath in felt like a stab of ice as he ran through the snow. Behind him he heard Denise’s yell, and a roar, shrieking, and then—

Silence.

The soft thump of something landing in the snow.

He turned and looked over his shoulder—

Denise’s body was on the ground.

Her body, which was missing her head.

Wyatt stumbled and nearly fell. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh _fuck_.

Something was leaping through the trees towards him. Something with long, ungainly, inhuman limbs, gray skin stretched tight over thin bones, milky white eyes, and emaciated features.

 _Wendigo_.

Wyatt was running as fast he could. He knew he was supposed to stay still, but staying still hadn’t helped Denise, he just had to run a little faster, just—just a little—

He saw it up ahead to his right just before it started to come at him. Wyatt swung the shotgun—and then saw the extra kerosene for the lodge behind the creature.

He fired.

The kerosene ignited, hitting the Wendigo and sending both it and Wyatt sprawling. He tried to get up, only to trip right over a tree root. He landed hard with a thud, a spike of pain radiating up his ankle.

Shit.

He got to his feet. He could barely put weight on his right foot now.

The lodge was only twenty feet away. If he could only…

“Lucy!” he yelled, gathering up his strength and making a dash for it. “Rufus! Flynn!”

His ankle was screaming at him but he sprinted up the steps, banging on the door. He could hear the shriek of the creature behind him.

The door opened and Flynn’s hand shot out, yanking him inside and slamming the door shut behind him. “Thank fuck,” Flynn burst out, pulling Wyatt to him and hugging him fiercely. “Where’s Denise?”

“It got her,” Wyatt said in between gulps of air. “It sliced her fucking head off, Flynn—”

“We need to get to the basement.” Flynn glanced down. “Your ankle?”

“I twisted it or something.”

“Rufus!” Flynn called.

Rufus hurried over with Lucy. “Help me get him downstairs,” Flynn said, indicating Wyatt.

“Where’s Denise? And Nicholas?” Lucy asked.

“Denise is dead. They took Nicholas, to their lair she said.” Wyatt didn’t tell them what else Denise had said would happen to him.

“We’ll never get out of here now,” Rufus said as they started down towards the basement. “Nicholas has the cable car keys.”

“Denise said that they would take him back to the lair,” Wyatt repeated. “And Rufus, you said they were down in the mines, right? So maybe we could go to the lair, get the keys, and come back.”

“And get Nick if he’s still alive,” Lucy added.

“No way are you going anywhere,” Flynn replied as they got down to the basement and barred the doors. “Not on that leg.”

“Let me come,” Lucy begged. “He’s my cousin.”

“You guys need to stay here where it’s safe.”

“But Garcia—”

“Please.” Flynn cupped Lucy’s cheek, his eyes soft and sad. Lucy nodded. Flynn looked over at Rufus. “Do you—if I find Jiya’s body—”

“No.” Rufus shook his head. “I—no. I don’t want—it’ll be all—I don’t want to remember her like that. Don’t put yourself at risk for something that isn’t even alive anymore.”

Flynn nodded. He looked at Wyatt, and for a moment Wyatt thought he might say something, but then he started to turn away.

Oh, hell no. Wyatt stood up and grabbed Flynn, yanking him back. “I’m sober this time,” he pointed out, and then kissed him.

Flynn kissed him back instantly, like this had been the permission he’d been waiting for, his mouth working against Wyatt’s until he felt hot all over.

“Come back safe,” he whispered. “I—I need—I, I should’ve, the way I felt, I shouldn’t’ve been ashamed of it. The way I still feel.”

Flynn brushed their noses together. “Stay safe here. Both of you.” His voice got even lower, probably so Rufus wouldn’t have to hear. “I can’t lose either of you.”

“We can’t lose you, either.”

Flynn kissed his temple and then stepped back, Lucy walking with him to bar the door after he left. She kissed Flynn too, although she had to jump up a little to do it, wrapping her arms around his neck. Flynn held onto her like he’d fall apart if he had to let go.

Then he was pulling away, slipping back through the door.

And gone.

 

* * *

 

Noah stumbled through the mines. He felt okay, just a little bruised and banged up, except that his head hurt like a motherfucker. Probably a light concussion, but who knew. He’d need to get medical attention to tell for sure.

It was a maze down here, all disused tunnels, and no map or any lights to see by. He hadn’t found Emma’s body, although he’d tried looking. She couldn’t have fallen too far from him, could she? What if she was still alive, cold and scared?

And what the fuck had been the thing dragging him?

Noah stopped short as he caught sight of something up ahead. A collapsed metal structure of some kind.

He pressed himself to the wall and peered at it. Yeah, it was a structure—an elevator. And lying on the elevator…

“Jiya!”

He ran towards her, sinking to his knees. She looked awful, bleeding and bruised, her breathing labored—

And then not breathing at all.

“No.” Noah frantically checked her pulse, checked her airways. She wasn’t choking on anything. He started compressions immediately. “C’mon, Jiya, c’mon, don’t do this—”

He could feel her body giving way as he pumped down on her chest, something buckled, something cracked, ribs, but it didn’t matter, fuck it didn’t matter so long as he pumped her heart and got it beating, “C’mon Jiya, stay with me, don’t you die on me—”

She inhaled a sharp rattling breath, her eyes flying open, choking and spluttering on air before she sank to the ground again, coughing. Noah felt her pulse. Weak, but there.

“…hurts…” Jiya whispered.

“I know. I think I fractured your ribs, I’m sorry. Your heart had stopped.”

“N-Noah…” She reached out a hand and managed to catch his shirt sleeve. “Thank you.”

“It’s my job, don’t worry about it. How the hell did you end up down here?”

“S-something… something got me… Rufus…” Jiya tried to sit up.

“Whoa, whoa.” Noah kept her lying down. “Let me check you for injuries, okay? What about Rufus, tell me about him. Is he hurt too?”

Jiya shook her head minutely as Noah patted her down, feeling for broken bones. “…tried… to save me… something—claws—took me…”

“Yeah, something took me too. Some kind of monster.”

“…left me on here… Rufus… he reached but it fell… I fell…”

“You fell all the way down here?” Holy shit, how was she still alive? “You’re one tough cookie.”

A ghost of a smile flitted across her face. “Rufus?”

“I haven’t seen him. I haven’t seen anyone.”

Jiya closed her eyes and swallowed. “Hurts.”

“I know. You’re pretty battered. Can you tell me where it hurts the most?”

Jiya used her left arm to point at her right one, cradled against her chest. Noah felt his way up it. When he got to the elbow Jiya shrieked in pain and her face went white.

“Okay, okay that is definitely a break.” He set the arm back down. “Just keep it cradled against you like that, and don’t move it.”

“No problem.”

“Anything else?”

“…my ankle…”

Noah felt that, and Jiya cursed under her breath. “Not broken, just twisted.”

“Yay.”

Even in pain and struggling to breathe, Jiya could be a master of sarcasm. “How’s your head?”

“Hurts,” Jiya replied. “Throbbing.”

“Anything else? Who’s the current president?”

She made a face. “Don’t make me say it.”

Noah laughed a little in spite of himself. “And are you dating anyone?”

“Rufus.”

“Do you know why we’re here?”

“Supposedly to celebrate Jess and Amy’s lives although that’s probably gone to shit.”

All right, so whatever head injury she’d gotten hadn’t affected her memory. That was good. She had a nasty purpling bruise along her hairline, though, and that was the injury Noah was the most worried about. If her brain had been damaged, he’d have no way to tell without medical equipment, not until it was too late.

He had to get her out of these mines.

“I’m going to try and get you standing, okay? Your ankle’s sprained, not broken, so if you lean on me you can walk.”

“Says you,” Jiya replied, but she let him haul her up to standing, her broken arm cradled against her chest as she shivered violently from the cold.

Noah looked around. Man, whoever’d been in these mines had left in a hurry. There was all kinds of shit still strewn about. He grabbed an oversized jacket and helped Jiya put it on. He couldn’t get it onto her broken arm, but he could zip it up so that the arm was cradled underneath the jacket. “There you go.”

“Thanks,” Jiya said quietly. She was talking better now, but her breathing was still labored thanks to the fractured ribs. Noah just had to pray that she wasn’t bleeding internally or suffering from another injury that he couldn’t see.

“Of course.” He got an arm around her and Jiya leaned on him, gripping his back with her good hand. “We’ll go slow.”

She winced as she put her weight on her bad ankle, but she was able to stumble along with it. Noah let out a quiet sigh of relief. Now he just had to figure out a way for them to get through these mines and back to the lodge—and without climbing, since Jiya was currently helpless in that department.

Jiya let out a noise of pain as she accidentally jostled her arm. “Shh,” Noah warned her. “Something is in these mines. It came for us once, it might come for us again.” He didn’t have confidence that his flare had scared it off permanently.

As if on cue, there was an inhuman shriek up ahead, a sound that wormed its way into Noah’s nerves and clamped down on his spine, freezing him in fear.

Jiya’s eyes went wide and she clung to him, shaking. “Th-that’s what took me.”

Noah swallowed. Forced himself to breathe in and out slowly. “I’ll get you out of here, Jiya, don’t worry.”

No matter what it took, he was getting her out of there.


	14. Chapter 14

_I’ll fix your feet ‘til you can’t walk, I’ll lock your jaw ‘til you can’t talk…_

 

* * *

 

 

The tunnel led through the old dilapidated hotel to the sanitarium, just like Rufus had said. From there, Flynn figured, it should be easy enough to get through to the mines.

He just had to stay calm through it.

The darkness played tricks on him. Shadows seemed to hold dangers, and ordinary sounds like water dripping down from the ceiling became ominous.

Jesus, how long did this tunnel go on for?

Slowly, ever so slowly, he saw that it started to slope upward. Flynn pressed himself to the wall, keeping to the darkness. Wyatt had said that these things saw based on movement, so Flynn doubted that darkness would help too much, but it was better than just striding in the middle of the room metaphorically going _hey cannibal monsters, it’s me, ya boi._

This sanitarium was huge. As Flynn made his way down the corridors, he could see signs all over. Multiple wards, a visitor’s area—presumably for family to meet with patients and see how their loved ones were doing—and administration offices.

No wonder Lucy’s family was rolling in money. They must’ve made a fortune off of this place, and the mines.

Rufus had said he’d gotten in through the front doors in the main hall. Pretty simple.

Now Flynn just had to find the damn main hall.

God, this place was a maze. He took the hallway to Ward D, hopefully that would lead to…

An inhuman shriek filled the air.

Oh, fuck.

Hopefully it hadn’t seen him. He could just run quietly down the ward—

And the Wendigo landed in front of him.

It was like a skeleton with skin stretched over it, gray, rotting skin, a scar on its forehead and a vicious gleam in its eyes.

Flynn grabbed a nearby plank of wood, threw it at the wendigo, and ran.

He dashed down the corridor, not caring where he was going so long as he could slam a door in the wendigo’s face. He dashed around the corner and—

_Oh fuck!_

—ducked just in time as a Wendigo arm shot out, swiping at him right where his neck had been. Howling and shrieking filled the air on either side of him, the doors rattling and banging.

There were Wendigos trapped in the old patient rooms.

Who the hell had put them there? Someone was trapping them? But why, what for…

No time to think about it now, he just had to get the hell out!

The Wendigos were banging against the doors, and he was pretty sure that one was still behind him. He had to stop them somehow. He had to…

Fire.

Denise had told Wyatt they could be destroyed with fire.

And Flynn just happened to have a lighter in his pocket.

He tugged the lighter out as he ran, darting through an open doorway and yanking the door closed behind him. It wouldn’t last forever but it would buy him time.

Now he just had to find something to burn…

There! A stockpile of barrels, filled with oil. _Denise_. If fire was their weakness, she must have had stockpiles on hand, ready to set something aflame with a well-placed barrel at a moment’s notice.

Flynn grabbed a barrel, rolling it towards the door. Already he could see it buckling, and if he was hearing those screams right, some of the Wendigos had broken out of their holding cells. Fuck. He didn’t have a lot of time.

He tipped the barrel carefully, sloshing a bit of the oil onto the floor, then tore a long strip of his shirt, twisting it into a rat’s tail and dipping it into the oil, laying it down on the floor so it connected with the puddle.

An improvised, crude wick to a very, very volatile candle.

Flynn flicked open his lighter just as the door splintered, giving way.

He turned on the lighter, threw it, and ran.

 

* * *

 

Lucy was curled up with Wyatt, the two of them idly whispering back and forth. Rufus was glad for them, really he was. It had taken a raging psychopath and supernatural monsters to get them to sort their shit out but at least they were finally all together.

He just wished he could get rid of the bitter taste in his mouth.

Flynn and Wyatt and Lucy all had each other.

But Jiya was gone.

Rufus sat down at the table, picking up a diary of some kind left there. “What’s this?” he asked, waving it.

Lucy looked over. “Oh, that’s Denise’s diary. She left it for me, said it might have useful information.”

“Well thank fuck she did,” Rufus muttered. “Seeing as she’s dead.”

He opened up the diary, flipping through it. There was plenty of information on the Wendigos. Their bite wasn’t what passed on the curse, so it didn’t work like a werewolf bite.

Rufus decided he wasn’t going to freak out on the whole werewolves being real thing until much, much later.

They loved human flesh, okay, knew that already. Apparently over time the ‘host’ of the Wendigo spirit, the human who’d become a cannibal, grew weaker. Their insanity intensified and they started to decay, and the Wendigo would want to find a new host. Made sense.

Then he turned the page and… oh.

Oh fuck.

_When the Wendigo is killed, by fire or decapitation, the spirit is released back into the mountain and awaits a new victim. At least when they are in this form, I can trap them and control them. So I have converted the cells in the base of the sanitorium to house them…_

Rufus jumped up. “Lucy. Lucy, we have to get to Flynn. We have to get to Flynn right now.”

“What? Why?”

He walked over and showed her and Wyatt the pages. “He’s headed straight for the sanatorium. But Denise trapped all the Wendigos there, look, it says she’s trapped about ten of them.”

“He’s headed into a trap,” Wyatt breathed.

 

* * *

 

Lucy’s heart hammered in her chest, going from slow to breakneck in the span of a second. Denise might not have intended it as a trap but, yeah, that was what it had turned into for Flynn. “He’ll have no idea those are waiting for him.”

“What do we do?” Wyatt asked.

“I’ll go after him.” Lucy snapped the diary shut and handed back to Rufus.

“Lucy, no.” Wyatt shook his head. “You’ve got no weapon, no—Rufus should go, he’s been there before.”

“I’ve spent enough of this night as a damsel in distress,” she snapped. “Flynn saved my life twice. Maybe it turned out to be an awful prank but we didn’t know that at the time. He was willing to kill someone else for me and he was willing to die for me, and like hell I’m letting him go into danger without doing my part.”

“But—”

“If your ankle was fine, Wyatt, nothing would stop you from going after him. So don’t try and stop me.”

Wyatt stared at her for a moment, then closed his mouth and nodded. “All right.” He grabbed her shoulders. “But please, Luce—for the love of God.”

“I know.”

“You two are all I have,” Wyatt whispered.

Lucy wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his neck, breathing him in. She was terrified—terrified of losing Wyatt, terrified of losing Flynn, terrified of what Mom was going to say when she learned Nicholas was gone, terrified of dying. But at least she could do something about one of those things. She could go and warn Flynn.

“I’m scared,” she admitted.

Wyatt tightened his hold on her. “I know. But you’re a badass, Luce, okay? You can do this. You got this.”

She nodded into his neck. “I love you.”

“I love you.” He kissed her temple. “Just come back, okay? You help Flynn and you two come right back.”

“I promise.” She pulled away and looked at Rufus. “Look after him, all right?”

Rufus clapped her on the shoulder. “Stay safe.”

“You too.” She hugged him.

“I’ll look after the idiot.” Rufus winked at Wyatt as he pulled back, letting him know he didn’t mean it.

“They sense movement,” Wyatt reminded her. “So stay still. Fire destroys them.”

Lucy nodded, leaning in to kiss him one last time. “You can do this,” he reminded her.

She stepped away, because if she didn’t do it now, she never would. She turned and approached the door, waiting for Rufus to unlock it and open it for her.

She hadn’t been able to save Amy. But she could save Flynn.

Lucy determinedly stepped into the tunnel.

 

* * *

 

They moved carefully through the mines. Jiya wished they had some kind of a map—and she wished that she could move normally. Her arm was on fire, even when she kept it as still as possible and cradled to her chest. Every movement of her body jostled it just a little, making her bite her lip in pain. Her ankle was screaming bloody murder too, but at least she could put her weight on it enough to keep walking. Each breath in brought a new stab of pain from her cracked ribs, and the wound on her head throbbed.

She was getting out of this. She wasn’t dying, dammit, she wasn’t getting eaten by whatever that was. She was getting back to Rufus, she was calling her mom, she was going to see her friends again and her dorm room and her stupid classmates.

Noah had his arm around her, carefully taking her weight and guiding her. He was the one figuring out where they were going, not her. Her head pounded like someone had shoved an ice pick into it and was continuing to hammer it in deeper, and she couldn’t stop shaking.

“It’s shock,” Noah told her. “From your blood loss.”

They’d bandaged her up as best they could, tearing off bits of their clothing to wrap around the claw marks. But they couldn’t strip themselves naked.

The only real solution was to get her to a hospital.

“I think we’re close to the surface,” Noah whispered. They’d been heading upward through the tunnels, slowly but surely. “Just a little while longer, you’re doing great.”

“You should just leave me.” She wasn’t going to give up but she couldn’t be a burden to Noah, either.

“Nope.” Noah shook his head. “You’re not getting out of here alone. I’m not leaving you.”

As if the universe had decided to respond to that with an _are you sure_ , there was a scuttling noise from behind them and a far-off scream.

A scream that definitely wasn’t human.

“Oh fuck,” Jiya whispered. Her shaking intensified, out of her control, her body entering its flight or fight response but unable to act on it when she was so damaged.

“There’s some kind of wooden support wall up ahead.” Noah guided her along.

Behind her, Jiya could hear something crawling and leaping, like some unholy combination of a spider and a monkey. She was pretty sure it was going along the walls and ceiling. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to faint.

She wanted to go home.

“C’mere.” Noah pulled her behind the wooden structure, holding her up as they pressed themselves against the wall.

Jiya clung to him. She and Noah had been friends for years, going to the same high school and what with he and Lucy dating and all, but they hadn’t talked in the year since Amy and Jess disappeared. But man, she was suddenly wishing she’d been a better friend to him all this time. She was going to owe him so big for this.

They held still, hardly daring to breathe, as they heard the creature approaching. It was sniffing, snarling. Hunting.

Through a gap in the wooden beams, Jiya could get a good look at it. She hadn’t really been able to see what was attacking her before, since it had gotten her from behind. But now…

Oh, God. It looked like a zombie and a spider had some kind of baby and then gave that baby up to Satan. She forced herself to keep still, even as everything in her screamed to flee. She couldn’t run. She could hardly walk. No way she’d be able to outrun this thing.

Maybe those stories she’d heard were right. Maybe this mountain was sacred. Maybe their being here had ruined things, called up something that should have been left sleeping. Because that—that was nothing natural. That was nothing found in the world of comforting science.

That was the stuff of nightmares.

The creature growled softly, skittering along the wall, sniffing. It was just a few feet away, and Jiya had to work hard to keep herself from losing her cool and giving them away.

She couldn’t say how long they stood frozen like that as the creature slowly prowled around, sniffing, searching. Noah kept her upright and thank God for that—her ankle couldn’t take any weight and the knee of her other leg buckled from exhaustion. She’d have fallen if Noah hadn’t been holding onto her.

At last, after what felt like hours, the creature moved on.

Jiya sank to the ground. Her legs were shaking uncontrollably.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It’s just—exhaustion, I guess.” She hated how her body was betraying her, how her mind was alert and ready to flee but her body just shook uselessly.

“Don’t apologize,” Noah whispered. “I’m going to get you out of here, don’t worry.”

“I’m just deadweight.”

Noah yanked her to her feet and got his arm around her again. “No, you’re not. You’re worth helping, Jiya.”

They emerged from their hiding place and began to trek up the mine shaft again. “I think we’re close. I can hear the wind howling.”

Jiya could hear something else. “Noah. Noah I think… I think there’s another one behind us…”

Noah glanced back. Jiya could hear the skittering and growling, coming up fast.

Only this time there was nowhere to hide.

“I can see light ahead,” Noah whispered. “Listen, I know your ankle hurts but it’s not broken. You can put weight on it for a short sprint.”

“What?” Oh no, he wasn’t thinking… “Noah, no.”

“I can buy you time.”

“My life isn’t worth more than yours!”

“This is what I do, Jiya. I help people. It’s my job as a doctor. And I’m fast, I’ll be fine.”

A shriek, like something from the world on the other side of this one, tore through the air. The creature had spotted them.

“Jiya,” Noah said, letting go of her and branching off. “Run!”

She didn’t want to leave him but—she couldn’t protect him, either. Not in her current state.

So she ran.

Her ankle screamed in pain and every fiber of her body hurt, her cuts re-opening from the force of her movement, her head pounding. She had to get to the light, follow the light—

Behind her she heard a roar and Noah scream.

“No!” Jiya stumbled to a halt, turning, running back. “Noah!”

The creature had him in its claws, its jaw locked around his shoulder, and was dragging him away. She wasn’t fast enough, she wasn’t going to be fast enough…

“No!” Noah screamed back at her. “Jiya run! Run! Go!”

Her body was screaming at her, she was going to collapse any second. Blackness crept into the edges of her vision. She couldn’t get to him, she didn’t have the strength, and she knew that Noah knew it.

“Go!” He was being dragged further away, leaving a trail of blood, gasping and yelling in pain. “Jiya go! Run!”

Tears stung her eyes. She felt useless, she felt so _useless_.

She turned and ran back, away from Noah, towards the light.

His screams echoed behind her, interspersed with him still yelling _go_ and _run_. She could feel hot tears running down her face now. If she wasn’t injured, if she had a weapon, if she was just stronger…

Noah’s screams were cut short.

She burst out of the mine entrance, sliding in the snow, gasping as the cold air hit her full in the face. She was at the top of a hill, and there in front of her was the lodge. It wasn’t right in front—it looked to be a good half a mile away.

Behind her there was nothing but silence. And then…

Scuttling.

Jiya moved to the side, pressing herself against the rock wall of the mountain, biting her lip. Don’t move, don’t move, don’t move…

She heard the creature sniffing around, growling, looking for her. She closed her eyes, resting her weight on her good leg, praying it would hold and the adrenaline would keep her upright.

After a moment, the creature retreated.

Jiya sank to the ground, buried her face in her knees, and sobbed.

 _I’m so sorry. Noah, I’m so sorry._ If she’d actually been herself, without a busted arm and ankle, she could’ve maybe fought the creature off. Noah wouldn’t have had to try and distract it in the first place.

It was all her fault.

Jiya stared up at the lodge, the snow on its roof gleaming in the moonlight. She used her good arm to wrap the miner’s jacket a little tighter around herself. It was going to be a long trek. But there was nothing but death waiting behind her.

 _One foot in front of the other_ , she reminded herself.

She pictured Rufus’s face when he’d reached for her in the elevator, when she’d started to plunge down, the devastation written there. She heard Noah’s scream, and his promise to her, that he’d get her out of there.

She owed it to both of them. She had to make it.

Jiya started the walk back to the lodge.


	15. Chapter 15

_I’ll close your eyes so you can’t see, this very hour, come and go with me._

 

* * *

 

 

Oh God, it was so dark in here. Lucy shivered, hugging her jacket more tightly around her. She kept freezing at every sound that reached her, and her nerves felt like they’d been stretched out and flayed. How was she supposed to compete against a creature that could see in the dark?

Her footsteps echoed through the tunnel. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She wasn’t like Flynn, who was relentless, or Wyatt who was brave if reckless, or Emma who refused to let anything get the best of her. She wasn’t like Jess, stubborn as hell, or Amy, who thought the only things worth doing were the things that scared you.

Had Jess and Amy been eaten by the Wendigos? They’d fallen off a cliff but… their bodies… had they been… consumed? Was that why the rangers searching had never found their remains?

The very thought made her want to throw up. If only she wasn’t alone, if only she had someone with her. If only she could be brave.

She emerged from the tunnel into a hallway of some kind, with thick doors on either side in rows—and saw something up ahead.

Something that moved.

Lucy shrank against the wall, hardly daring to even breathe. The thing moved closer, growling softly, sniffing. It was going to find her, it was going to eat her, it was…

The creature moved closer, still sniffing, and Lucy caught sight of fur in the moonlight.

Oh thank fuck.

It wasn’t a Wendigo.

It was a wolf.

The wolf moved closer, clearly sniffing her out. Lucy stepped out from the shadows, crouching down. “Hey, buddy.”

The wolf looked up, yellow eyes peering at her. Lucy smiled. “Hello there. You wanna say hi? Huh?”

She stretched out her hand and the wolf crept closer, sniffing at her fingers. It butted its head up against her hand and Lucy pet it, scratching behind its ears. The wolf growled softly in approval, its tail wagging.

“You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” Lucy cooed. “What are you doing in here all by yourself, huh? Shouldn’t you have a pack?”

The wolf growled softly in response.

Hmm. He—Lucy glanced down to check and yup, it was a he—seemed pretty comfortable with humans. He didn’t growl menacingly at her or anything. And Denise’s journal had said she kept Wendigos trapped here, and Rufus had seen Denise wandering around here.

Could it be that Denise had kept a couple of wolves as pets and guard dogs?

It made sense, if Denise was all alone up here, and her wife was a part of a Native American tribe. They might have traditions or a friendly relationship with a wolf pack that had given Denise this opportunity.

Lucy stood up and the wolf panted at her, moving ahead a few steps, then looking back.

“You want me to follow you? Huh? Is that it?”

The wolf barked at her. Lucy smiled in spite of herself. She’d always wanted a dog growing up, her and Amy, but Mom had said no. “All right. But I need to call you something. How about Wolfie?”

The wolf cocked his head at her for a moment, as if in confusion, then turned and trotted down the hallway.

Lucy followed.

Up ahead the hallway spilled out into a huge main hall. To her left she could see the front doors that Rufus must have gone through. Was Flynn through there?

Wolfie growled softly when she headed towards the doors, and in a menacing way, his hackles raised.

…okay. Guess that door wasn’t safe. “Show me where to go boy. We gotta find Flynn.”

Wolfie probably had no idea who Flynn was, but he could at least show her a safe way out of here. He turned and padded up the stairs.

Up the stairs? …okay then.

Lucy followed, the darkness feeling a bit less oppressive now that she had Wolfie with her. He led her along the hallway and then down another set of stairs to a large room that looked like it had once been a sort of mess hall. Lucy spied a machete and grabbed it—the blade was splattered with dried blood. Probably one of Denise’s weapons.

Wolfie led her across the room toward another door, then stopped, growling.

Lucy froze.

Up ahead, something skittered.

Lucy raised the machete…

…and a rat ran out from underneath a chair.

Jesus Christ. Lucy slumped her shoulders, her heart racing and chest heaving with relief. She’d thought that was a—

Wolfie howled and she turned, screaming, as a Wendigo landed on one of the tables and roared at her. It looked old, completely rotted, and was wearing what looked like old miner’s clothes.

Without hesitation, Wolfie leapt at the Wendigo, knocking it to the ground. But the Wendigo tore at Wolfie with its claws and teeth—her wolf friend wouldn’t last long.

Lucy hoisted up the machete and gave a yell, running at the Wendigo and hacking at its head. Decapitation, Denise’s journal had said. Decapitation!

She didn’t care if this was letting the spirit free, she just cared about getting out of this alive. She hacked and hacked, goopy brown congealed blood flying in her face, on her clothes, the Wendigo shrieking and clawing wildly, scratching up her arms. But between her and Wolfie, at last, the head rolled free and the Wendigo slumped to the ground in a lifeless pile.

Lucy wiped at her face and realized she was crying. Her knees were wobbling.

Fuck, she couldn’t do this. What was she thinking?

She staggered, gripped the edge of the table, and then threw up.

Wolfie licked at her face as she sat down heavily. “Good boy,” she murmured. “I’m not cut out for this, buddy.”

She pet Wolfie as she got her breath back. She’d come this far. She couldn’t give up now. “Thanks, buddy. You’re a good dog.”

Wolfie nuzzled her hand and then stepped back, growling for her to follow him.

Lucy sighed. “You’re right, you’re right, I should keep moving.”

She got up and followed Wolfie through the hall, down another hallway—and out a back door into the snow.

Lucy sagged against the wall in relief. Now, where was Flynn?

Wolfie suddenly let out a bark and started running for another end of the sanitarium. Lucy took off, following. “Wolfie! Wolfie wait!” she hissed, trying to keep her voice down.

But Wolfie didn’t stop. He kept running, right up until he got to another side door. Lucy’s lungs were burning and she skidded to a halt. She didn’t think Wolfie would lead her to a Wendigo, but…

Wolfie barked at the door. Lucy hurried over to it. Beyond, she thought she could see orange light, and she felt warm…

“Flynn!” she yelled, yanking at the door with all her might until it flew open, flames exploding outwards towards her. “Flynn!”

There was coughing, and then a shriek, and then, “Lucy!”

Wolfie barked and growled, his hackles raised, and Lucy hoisted up her machete, readying it like she was up to bat.

A figure emerged from the flames, coughing and stumbling—and then another, faster figure came behind it. Wolfie growled, howling.

“Lucy…” The first figure was Flynn.

Lucy grit her teeth. “Get him Wolfie!”

Wolfie leapt, striking the second figure just as it started to gain on Flynn, knocking it to the ground. Lucy swung at it, hitting it again and again with the machete, until its head rolled off from its body.

“Good boy.”

Flynn, coughing and stumbling, collapsed to his knees, gasping into the snow. “Y-you…”

“I came to warn you about the Wendigos,” she told him. “Looks like you already found that out.”

Flynn nodded, and Lucy pet Wolfie as he padded up to her, tongue lolling. “Such a good boy.”

Flynn eyed Wolfie warily. “Um…”

“Don’t worry, I think Denise kept him as a pet. He’s very friendly for a wolf, used to people. He showed me the way to get to you.”

She helped Flynn to his feet, brushing the soot and ashes off his shirt. “Are you oka—”

Flynn took her face in his hands and kissed her. His mouth tasted like ashes, but she didn’t care—she could feel his pulse thudding against her mouth, his skin warm and alive, and that was what mattered.


	16. Chapter 16

_I’m Death I come to take the soul, leave the body and leave it cold._

 

* * *

 

 

Flynn hugged Lucy with all his might. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, pulling away to take a look at her. She was covered in what looked like rotten blood, and she was carrying a machete, her arms and face all scratched up.

“I came to warn you about the Wendigos,” she admitted, running her hands over him. Flynn knew he probably looked a mess, covered in blood and soot. “Are you okay?”

“I’m good.” He wanted her to go back to the lodge, where it was safe, but he couldn’t let her do it alone. They were sticking together. “C’mon, let’s find out where this fucker lives.”

“Okay.” Lucy turned, looking for something. “Um…”

“Lucy, it’s okay. We need to go now, before those things find Wyatt and Rufus.” He grabbed a wooden plank and made a torch out of it, stabbing one end in the burning wreck of the sanitarium to light their way.

She nodded, grabbing his hand as they started to walk through the snow towards the mine entrance.

“This looks like the main entrance,” Flynn noted as they entered.

“How could anyone be so cruel,” Lucy whispered. “They knew the mines were unstable and they kept digging anyway.”

“What?”

“That’s what Rufus said.”

Flynn squeezed her hand. “People are awful sometimes. But we’re not going to suffer from their mistakes, okay? We’re getting out of here.”

“I don’t know how to tell my mom,” Lucy admitted as they got deeper and deeper into the mines. Flynn wasn’t following anywhere in particular. He was just going down. Call it a hunch, but if Wendigos only came out in winter, then he suspected they didn’t want to be anywhere near the surface when the warm summer months came.

Flynn bit back his instinct to tell Lucy that her mom could shove it up her ass and be glad that her daughter had gotten back alive, but instead he replied, “Wyatt and I will be there when you tell her. And if you have to stay with my mom instead of going home, you can.”

Lucy looked up at him. “You mean that?”

“Of course I mean it. She loves you.”

“But will she love… y’know…”

“You and me and Wyatt.” Flynn sighed. “I don’t know if she’ll be all gung-ho about it right away. But I know that she loves you and she loves Wyatt, and she worried about you guys and your parents for a while. Especially Wyatt’s dad. She’ll find a way to understand. That’s her motto—if she didn’t know something at NASA, she worked until she understood it. She’ll do the same with us. And it won’t change her taking care of either of you if you want to make our home yours too.”

Lucy brought his hand up to her lips, kissing his knuckles. “I’ll think about it.”

Flynn’s heart fluttered and he was going to say something—when the path suddenly dropped out beneath them.

He yelped, clinging to Lucy as she screamed in surprise, the two of them tumbling ass over teakettle down a slope and landing deep, deep down.

Right at the bottom of the mines.

Flynn scrambled to his feet and looked up, then nearly vomited. “Lucy. Lucy don’t—”

Lucy looked up.

She clapped her hands over her mouth as she took in the sight.

Bodies were hanging up above them. Some were skeletons, but some were fresh.

And Flynn recognized them.

Emma, Noah, and Denise.

“Oh my God.”

“Don’t—don’t look, Lucy…”

“I don’t see Jiya,” Lucy whispered, her voice trembling.

“She could be somewhere else? Maybe Wendigos all have different lairs?”

“I don’t see…” Lucy swallowed. “I d-don’t see Amy or Jess.”

Flynn lowed his gaze and froze. “I see Jess.”

Lucy turned and followed his gaze, whimpering. “Oh, God, Flynn…”

Jess’s shrunken head, preserved from the cold, was sitting on top of a rock. Behind her on the rock wall were scratched tally marks, dozens of them. In front of Jess was a crude wooden cross on which was carved, messily but painstakingly,

 

_Jessica Moore_

_August 24 th 1998 – February 2nd 2017_

_She was light. She was loved._

Flynn crouched down, feeling the ground. “There was a grave here. Someone dug it up again.”

“The Wendigo?” Lucy whispered. “And put her head like… like that?”

“I think the head is… respectful? Somehow?”

Lucy felt the letters carved into the cross. “She died that night. From the fall.” Tears sprang into her eyes and Flynn heard her voice getting choked up. “Amy must’ve… must’ve buried her…”

Flynn looked at the writing on the cross, then at the tally marks on the wall. “Those letters took a long time to carve,” he pointed out. “These tally marks… I think they’re days, Lucy.”

But how did Amy survive down here if this was where the Wendigo lived?

Lucy was still crying. Flynn hauled her to her feet, wrapping an arm around her. “ _Moja ljubav_ , shh, it’s okay. I’m so sorry. But we have to keep going, okay? We have to get the keys and get out of here.”

“Nicholas isn’t here,” Lucy whispered. “He’s not with the bodies.”

“Then he might still be alive.” Nobody could climb up that rock wall they’d fallen down. But on the other side there was a lake. Someone could swim it, if they were determined. “C’mon.”

He led Lucy to the edge of the lake and clambered in, shivering. “Jesus, this is cold.” He held his hands out to her. “It’s okay, Lucy, there’s no sharks in here.”

“Sharks can’t live in water this cold,” Lucy replied, but she climbed in and took his hands, letting him guide her through the water.

There was a gigantic water wheel, which explained how the elevators and shit still worked around here despite the disrepair. The wheel must’ve generated electricity to keep everything running.

“Up you get,” Flynn told her, hoisting Lucy up onto the opposite bank and then climbing after her.

Lucy closed her eyes, shaking her head. “Go away,” she muttered.

“Lucy?”

“Not you.”

Flynn frowned, but then his attention was caught by something on the ground. “Hey, that looks like papers.”

He crouched down, picking them up. He recognized this writing—it was Amy’s.

_Day 5_

_I’ve never been so hungry. It feels like my stomach is twisting around inside._

_I took Jess’s jacket. She doesn’t need it anymore and I’m much warmer now. She’s still looking out for me._

_I miss Lucy._

_Day 7_

_Jess tried to save me, she did. They need to know that._

_I dream about Lucy saving me. Like when I was little and had nightmares._

_It’s so cold and dark here. It feels like I’m outside of time itself._

Flynn flipped through. The handwriting got jerkier as time went on, as hunger took Amy’s physical and mental functions.

 

_Day 30_

_I’m sorry Jess. I’m so sorry. I love you. I’m sorry. I have no choice. I’m dying. It’s the only way I can survive anymore. If anyone finds this, I’m so sorry. I had to, I had no choice. Lucy forgive me. I’m sorry. I miss you._

From here the handwriting deteriorated even more, as though Amy was forgetting how to write.

_Day 35_

_My hands feel unclean_

_my nails fell out_

_PUSHED out_

_I am aching but no more cold_

_no pain_

_I am getting STRONGER!_

The next few pages were blank, until Flynn found one more. It was written all over the page in huge uncoordinated writing, just three words repeated ad nauseam:

_HUNGER JESS LUCY HUNGER LUCY HUNGER JESS JESS JESS HUNGER LUCY LUCY HUNGER HUNGER HUNGER_

 

Flynn staggered upright. Oh no. Oh _no_. “Lucy.”

Lucy was crying. “S-stop!” she whispered. “Stop it!”

“ _Moja draga_ , it’s okay, come here.” Flynn drew her to him and showed her the journal. “Lucy, I’m sorry but… I know who the Wendigo is.”

Lucy stared at him, uncomprehending.

Flynn pointed at the journal page. “Lucy. The Wendigo is Amy.”


	17. Chapter 17

_To draw the flesh up from the frame, dirt and worm both have a claim._

 

* * *

 

 

“No.” Lucy shook her head. “No, no, Flynn—”

“She was starving, Lucy! She was scared and alone! She didn’t know it would allow some creepy demon thing to possess her! She just knew she had to survive until rescue found her!”

“My sister my baby sister…” Lucy clapped her hands over her ears, shaking her head wildly. “Amy, Amy baby I’m so sorry you gotta believe me… I didn’t forget you!” Lucy started screaming at empty air. “I didn’t forget you! I promise! I made them search for days! I made them search after Mom wanted us to stop! I never forgot you!”

“Lucy.” She was scaring him—not that he was afraid of her, but for her. He caught her hands, holding them. “Lucy, please.”

“I can see her,” Lucy whispered. “She’s standing—right over—your shoulder.”

“Nobody’s there,” Flynn repeated. “I’m so sorry, Lucy, but Amy’s not there. She’s a Wendigo.”

Tears leaked out of the corners of Lucy’s eyes. “I know,” she admitted. “I know she’s not really there but she is for me. I can s-see her. I’ve seen her all night. It’s why Mom put me in the—the h-hospital, and why I—I need my meds, I didn’t, I forgot to, and I need to—”

“Okay, okay.” Flynn pulled her in and let her sob on his chest. It seemed that mental illness ran in the family.

“I don’t want to be like Nick, I don’t—I’m not a psycho I promise—”

“You’re nothing like him,” Flynn promised her. “But you need help, and we’re going to get it for you, you just need to breathe. I’ll get you out of here, I promise.”

Lucy cried into his chest. Flynn searched around desperately for something to help. “Why does Amy appear to you?”

“My therapist says she’s a manifestation of the guilt I feel,” Lucy replied, sounding world weary and exhausted. “She just stares at me. Sometimes she says my name. But I know she’s—she’s blaming me for not finding her.” Lucy sobbed again. “She was s-starving and scared all alone down here, I left my baby sister all alone down here…”

“What happened was awful but it wasn’t anybody’s fault, especially not yours. And Amy—Amy knows that.”

Lucy laughed hollowly. “I wish I could ask her. Make sure. Ask if she still loves me.”

“She does.”

“She’s a m-monster now, Flynn.”

He didn’t have a response to that. “Maybe… maybe… the real Amy is still under there somewhere. That lair we went through, right? That had Emma’s body in it, and Noah, and Denise, right?”

Lucy nodded.

“Well, Amy was angry with Emma for the prank. She doesn’t know Denise except as a threat. And you had just broken up with Noah, so the last Amy probably remembers of him was making you cry.”

“He didn’t make me…”

“It’s probably all twisted in her head.”

“What about Jiya?”

“Her body wasn’t there. We know there’s more than one Wendigo. Probably another one, a different one, attacked her. Look.” Flynn pulled away so that he could pick up Amy’s journal, showing Lucy the final page. “Even here, when she was losing her mind, she’s writing Lucy and Jess. Your name, her sister’s name. She keeps Jess’s head like a—a kind of memento. Somewhere deep inside all twisted up she still loves you, she still knows who you are.”

“I don’t know if I believe that,” Lucy whispered.

Flynn pulled her into his arms, rubbing her back. “Well, I believe it. Now let’s find Nicholas and get these damn keys and get you home. Get you help.”

Lucy wiped at her eyes. “You already knew, didn’t you?”

Flynn knew what she meant. “Yes.”

“How?”

He sighed. “Nicholas told me he didn’t put up any fake ghosts. But you kept saying you saw someone. And mental illness can run in the family. And… there wasn’t a wolf.”

Lucy stared at him. “What?”

“You said a wolf led you to me. Lucy, there was no wolf with you. You came by yourself.”

Painful understanding lit up Lucy’s face and she shut her eyes tightly, turning her head away. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t… don’t tell Wyatt?”

“Wyatt isn’t going to love you any less. No less than I do.” He took her face in his hands, turning it back towards him. “I would burn this whole mountain down for you, Lucy. I’d burn the world down.”

She opened her eyes, her hands coming up to cover his. “I know,” she whispered.

“We’ll talk about it more later. The three of us. But first we’re getting out of here. That a good plan?”

Lucy nodded. “Yes.”

Flynn hugged her tightly. “I love you. Nothing, absolutely nothing is changing that. I don’t care if you really do see dead people, okay?”

Lucy hugged him back. “I can’t do this Flynn.”

“Yes, you can.” He pulled back, taking her face in his hands. “Why do you think you came up with Wolfie, huh? You didn’t think you could do it alone. But you did. You saved me from that Wendigo, all by yourself.”

Lucy looked down at her arms. “I—there was another Wendigo. I thought Wolfie killed it. It clawed at him…”

“But it was you. You did that, Lucy. You are strong enough. We all have our coping mechanisms but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t strong for using them. Your mind did what it had to so you could cope, and you came out the other side. That’s all that matters.”

Lucy nodded and Flynn sighed in relief. “Okay. Now let’s find Nicholas and get the fuck out of here.”

 

* * *

 

Lucy followed Flynn away from the lake, pond, thing, shivering the whole time. Amy stared at her from the shadows.

Amy.

She’d come to Lucy as they went through the basement. She’d stared at her in the living room as Denise explained the Wendigos. And now she was here again, a cold, standing corpse, staring at Lucy. Judging her.

_How could you forget me?_

“I think I see something,” Flynn whispered.

Up ahead, Lucy could hear someone talking to themselves.

“It’ll work it’ll work it’ll work it just needs—it needs adjustment but it’ll work…” There was a burst of hysterical laughter.

Lucy knew that voice. “That’s Nicholas.”

They crept forward and found her cousin curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth, talking to himself. Lucy swallowed, her stomach churning. She didn’t want to be like that. Please, God, don’t let her be like that.

“Nicholas?” she whispered.

Nick didn’t seem to notice her.

Flynn strode right up and hauled Nicholas to his feet, then slapped him.

“Garcia!” Lucy burst out.

Nicholas shook himself, then stared at her and Flynn. “…Lucy?”

“See?” Flynn said, releasing Nicholas. “It worked.”

“Nick, we have to go,” Lucy said, shaking him.

“That—that thing,” Nicholas murmured. “It took—Emma, her body… was dangling…”

“I know. And it’s not a thing, okay? It’s Amy.” Anger boiled over in her and she shook Nicholas again. “Amy became that, because of your stupid prank, putting her in danger—she was starving and alone down here, Nick, and she became that.” She released her cousin, stepping away from him. “You disgust me.”

“Lucy.” Flynn gestured upward. “Can you climb this wall?”

“I’ve climbed worse.” She and Amy used to go rock climbing with Flynn, Wyatt, and Jess on weekends with Flynn’s mom. “But Nick can’t get up there. Not in his state.”

“Then I’ll take him back the way we came. You need to get back to the others.”

Lucy didn’t like the idea of leaving Flynn. “Are you sure?”

“Nick’ll slow us down. I’d rather he slowed down just me than you. You can get the cable car ready.”

Lucy sighed. She supposed Flynn had a point. She could help Rufus get Wyatt to the cable car and start it up. “Nick, the cable car keys.”

“Oh… um… yeah.” Nicholas dug around in his pockets and then handed her the keys.

“Last time I ever trust you with anything,” Lucy muttered.

She grabbed Flynn by the shirt and yanked him down, kissing him. “One for the road,” she murmured.

Flynn kissed her again. “Give Wyatt that one for me.”

She let Flynn boost her up, finding hand and footholds, bracing herself. The light looked so far above her—impossibly far—but she’d climbed worse. She breathed carefully. “I’ll see you there.”

“You will,” Flynn promised.

Lucy began to climb.

 

* * *

 

Flynn waited until he was sure Lucy was sufficiently high up, and then turned to Nicholas. “C’mon, you fucked up son of a bitch.”

He didn’t care if Lucy had a new personality every week. He didn’t care how many voices Nicholas heard. What he cared about was that Nicholas had tried to terrorize all of them.

But Flynn wasn’t a killer, not unless he had to be. He wasn’t going to leave Nicholas alone here.

Nick was surprisingly docile as he followed Flynn back to the lake. He didn’t offer up an apology, which didn’t surprise Flynn, but it almost seemed like Nicholas wasn’t even in a position to think about an apology. He kept muttering to himself.

Flynn couldn’t help but think that maybe the trauma of being kidnapped by a horrifying undead creature had fucked Nick up a little. It would be enough to fuck anyone up, really.

They reached the lake and Flynn got in, helping Nicholas down after him. “It gets a little deep in the middle, so be careful.”

They waded through, feeling their way so they wouldn’t slip and fall. Fuck, it was cold.

And then he saw it.

Ripples in the water.

“Oh fuck. Nick, ru—”

Something grabbed him around the ankle, yanking him underwater. Flynn thrashed, kicking out, coughing and spluttering as he was submerged. He couldn’t see a fucking thing, but whatever it was—the Wendigo, it had to be—let go of his leg almost immediately.

Flynn swam as far away as he could, coming up to the surface behind a large rock. He turned—

And his jaw dropped.

It was his first proper glimpse at the creature that had once been Amy Preston, and holy shit. She stood at about seven feet tall, maybe even eight, skeletal, with elongated limbs, but she wasn’t as corpselike as the other Wendigo that Flynn had seen. Her skin wasn’t rotted, just gray and hairless, and there was intelligence in her eyes. Strength in every limb. She kind of reminded him of Gollum, actually, only a huge and much more terrifying version.

And she had Nicholas.

Her hand was around Nick’s throat as she hoisted him into the air. Nicholas struggled, screaming, staring into Wendigo-Amy’s face.

He must’ve seen it there, the way Flynn saw it: the barely similar features, the spark that said, _I know this person_.

“…Amy?” Nicholas whispered.

Wendigo-Amy gave an unholy scream of rage and grabbed Nicholas’s head—

Flynn couldn’t have stopped the vomit if he’d tried as Wendigo-Amy ripped Nick’s head off.

Wendigo-Amy gave a scream of triumph, and began to drag the body of what had once been her cousin back to her lair.

Flynn sagged against the rock, trembling.

Holy fuck.


	18. Chapter 18

_O Death, O Death, won’t you spare me over ‘til another year?_

 

* * *

 

 

Lucy hoisted herself up into the snow, shivering and shaking. Up above her, the sky was lightening. It was almost dawn.

She clambered to her feet, brushing herself off. Her limbs were doing that trembling thing where she knew once the adrenaline wore off, her body would be like a pile of limp noodles. She hadn’t exerted herself like that in ages. Maybe ever.

But up ahead, in the distance, she could see the lodge. Just the dark outline of it against the moonlit sky, but it was enough.

She hiked carefully through the woods. God, she wasn’t going on any nature hikes any time soon. Hell no. Everything around her was ominous. She felt like Snow White when she was fleeing the Huntsman in the Disney film. She kept staggering, her body trying to give out, but she couldn’t, not yet. She had to get Rufus and Wyatt to the cable car.

In the distance she could hear the Wendigos shrieking. Maybe it was that they were frustrated, sensing it was close to dawn and their prey was still out there, but they sounded worse than ever. Bolder. Coming out in numbers.

Oh God, Amy. Amy, baby, her sister. Turned into one of those.

The lodge. There it was. Lucy picked up her pace, put her hand on the door handle.

Locked.

Fuck, of course it was, Rufus and Wyatt would be expecting her to come in the same way she’d left and they wouldn’t take any chances on something getting in.

She looked around, maybe there was a rock or something…

And felt a hand on her shoulder.

Lucy jumped, whirling around with a yelp—only to see Flynn.

Her legs nearly gave out. “Oh thank God, Garcia.” She launched herself at him, wrapping herself in his warmth.

Flynn held her tightly, stroking her hair. Then Lucy realized—he was alone. “Where’s Nicholas?”

Flynn shook his head. “Amy got him,” he whispered.

“Oh God.” Pity and vindication mingled in her. She couldn’t say if she felt her cousin deserved it or not.

“Where are Wyatt and Rufus?” Flynn asked.

“The door’s locked.” She reached down, grabbed a rock, and smashed the window pane, reaching through and opening the door from the inside.

Flynn grinned at her. “That was attractive.”

“Why thank you.”

Lucy walked in and flicked on the wall lights. Flynn flicked them back off again, shaking his head. “Not good.”

He led her down to the basement. “Wyatt?” he whispered. “Rufus?”

There was silence as they approached the door. But then…

The door burst open, and Rufus appeared, supporting Wyatt. “They’re behind us!”

Lucy looked over Rufus’s shoulder and saw—

Oh, fuck. Two of them.

“Run!” Flynn yelled, grabbing Wyatt from Rufus, allowing Rufus to sprint up the steps.

“Flynn, don’t—” Wyatt started, but Flynn shook his head.

“Like hell I’m leaving you,” he snarled.

Lucy’s heart pounded. Should she run? Or close the door?

She had to give Flynn and Wyatt more time.

She ran, slamming the door shut and sliding the bolt home just as one of the creatures thumped against it. “Flynn!”

“I know!”

In a burst of what had to be adrenaline-fueled strength, Flynn managed to hoist up Wyatt and dash up the steps with him. Lucy turned and followed, pounding up the stairs. She saw Wyatt by the front door, and Rufus near a pillar, Flynn closest to her, facing her, heading back for her—

Except he was frozen.

“Stop!” Wyatt hissed. “Lucy, stop!”

Lucy skidded to a halt.

Flynn’s voice was so quiet, it felt like it floated to her on the wind. “Don’t… move…”

“Don’t fucking move a muscle,” Rufus whispered.

Up on the chandelier was Wendigo-Amy.

Lucy locked eyes with Wyatt. He was closest to the door but he was leaning heavily on one leg. What if he lost his balance?

Lucy held still, her pulse thumping in her ears, as Wendigo-Amy looked around. Trying to find them.

There was a splintering sound and roars of anger, and the two Wendigo that had been chasing them through the basement leapt up the stairs in their strange, spiderlike way.

The three Wendigo leapt around the room, shrieking at each other. Wendigo-Amy was much bigger and stronger looking than the other two, and there seemed to be some kind of… alliance between the two smaller, older Wendigo. Perhaps the friendship the miners had in life had continued into a kind of pack-alliance after their transformation?

One of the Wendigo leapt onto Wendigo-Amy and she grabbed him, flinging him into the staircase—nearly hitting Flynn, who managed to barely even flinch—and then flinging him into the fireplace.

The Wendigo hit the fireplace with a crash, and Lucy saw that the pipe that let gas in was now open, leaking gas into the room.

…leaking gas.

She looked over at Flynn. Flynn was staring at the gas—then he looked over at the wall, at one of the exposed lightbulbs. Then he looked at the light switch by the front door, the one Lucy had tried to turn on earlier.

He looked back at her.

Lucy nodded just the tiniest bit, to let him know she was thinking the same thing. Expose the bare wire of the lightbulb and hit the switch, and the lodge would blow.

But they had to get everyone out first. Anyone trapped in the lodge would die once the wires ignited.

Flynn started to cautiously move towards the lightbulb.

There was a shriek as the other Wendigo attacked Wendigo-Amy. They leapt at each other, snapping and snarling, until Wendigo-Amy smashed the other one into the ground and ripped its head off.

Wyatt stumbled, his ankle giving way, just barely catching himself by grabbing a chair.

Wendigo-Amy turned at the sound, shrieking.

Wyatt froze.

Oh, fuck. No. Lucy couldn’t let this happen.

Wendigo-Amy drew closer to Wyatt…

And Flynn reached the lightbulb, wrapping his hand around it and squeezing.

The lightbulb shattered as Flynn turned his head away, shards of glass falling onto the floor.

Wendigo-Amy turned towards the sound. “Go!” Flynn whispered, jerking his head at Wyatt.

Wyatt stumbled out the door while Wendigo-Amy’s back was turned, rushing out into the snow.

Wendigo-Amy advanced towards Flynn, howling. Lucy grit her teeth.

“Hey!” she yelled. “Amy!”

Wendigo-Amy spun around. Lucy stayed absolutely still as the creature that had been her sister leapt towards her, skittering around, trying to see her. She got right in Lucy’s face, shrieking, but Lucy forced herself to stay calm. Pretend it’s another hallucination, she told herself. Pretend it’s all in your head. Don’t react. Don’t give it your attention.

Rufus slipped out the front door behind Wendigo-Amy’s back. Another one safe.

Wendigo-Amy turned at the sound and Lucy took her chance, darting around to hide behind the fireplace.

Her heart hammered loudly until it was the only thing she could hear as Wendigo-Amy crept closer, sniffing, trying to find her. Another Wendigo swung down from the rafters, shrieking, distracting her sister, making Wendigo-Amy turn to howl at it.

Flynn started to creep towards the front door.

Lucy forced herself to breathe. Wendigo-Amy was moving away now, away from both of them. They had to move now.

Flynn stared at her for a moment, agony in his eyes. Lucy nodded. _It’s okay_.

He slipped out the door.

Now it was just her. No other humans in the lodge. Nobody to protect or worry about.

Lucy took a deep breath and ran for it.

Immediately one of the Wendigos was after her, leaping along the walls, its claws swiping at the air where she had just been.

Wendigo-Amy turned, saw the tasty small creature running, running for the door—and the Wendigo after her—

Lucy turned to look over her shoulder—

Her eyes met those of what had once been her sister.

“Amy!”

Wendigo-Amy tilted her head. She knew that voice. That was the voice that held her when she had nightmares. That read Shakespeare in a dramatic, awful British accent. That helped her with her history homework.

_Lucy. Sister._

And that monster was after her.

Wendigo-Amy leapt at the other Wendigo, catching it by the throat just as it reached for Lucy. Lucy’s lungs burned as she dashed the final ten feet, her arm reaching out—

_I’m so sorry Amy._

—and she hit the switch.

The gas ignited and turned the lodge into a blazing fireball. Lucy was thrown forward into the snow, landing with a painful _umph_ on her front. Inside the lodge, every Wendigo burned, their screams echoing for an instant before their spirits were released.

“Lucy!”

She ached all over. Her entire back had been hit by the blast of heat and she was ninety percent sure her jacket had been burned off. Her ears rang and her head felt heavy.

“Lucy, Lucy—” It was Flynn, hauling her to her feet. “Lucy, hey.”

“…heeeeey…” she slurred.

“Fuck.” That was Wyatt. “Luce? She—she’s okay, right?”

Lucy blinked slowly, the world swimming into focus. “Wyatt?” she croaked. “Flynn?”

Flynn let out a sound like a sob and hugged her to him, clinging for dear life. Wyatt planted kisses all over her hair, and then they were all crying and laughing, hysterical with relief.

Lucy turned, looking up at the sky.

Dawn was breaking.

Flynn got to his feet, helping her and Wyatt up. They were going to need medical attention. Lucy launched herself at Wyatt, hugging him, squeezing tight, and then looked over his shoulder…

And saw the lone figure staggering up the hill.

“Jiya?” she breathed.

Rufus was still staring at the burning lodge, his back to them all.

The figure drew closer. She was clutching her one arm to her chest, stumbling and limping, covered in blood and scratches, but it was… it was!

“Rufus!” Lucy yelled. “Rufus look!”

Rufus turned—and saw her.

He ran, ran as fast as he could, sprinting through the snow. Jiya stumbled to a stop as she saw him, her legs finally giving out, and he caught her, letting her sag into his arms. Jiya clutched at him, sobbing about monsters and Noah and barely escaping, as Rufus rocked her and kissed her and soothed her.

The sound of rhythmic chopping reached them, and Lucy looked up.

A rescue helicopter was headed towards them.

“Here!” Flynn yelled, waving his arms. “We’re here! We need help!”

The helicopter landed, a few rangers climbing out. “What happened?”

“We need medical attention,” Flynn said, his arms around Wyatt and Lucy’s shoulders, letting them lean back onto him for support.

Rufus swept Jiya up into his arms, bridal style, and carried her through the snow. She looked barely conscious. “It’s okay my love,” Lucy heard him murmuring. Tears of relief and joy were sliding down his face. “You’re safe now. We’re all safe.”

“Call the police,” Lucy rasped as the rangers reached her. “You need… the police…”

“Later,” Flynn told her. “Later, let’s get you seen to first.”

“We made it,” Wyatt said, sounding disbelieving. “We actually made it.”

“Going to take back what you said?” Flynn teased.

“Never.” Lucy looked up as Wyatt yanked Flynn down to him, kissing him before pulling back to press their foreheads together. “I love you.”

They were bundled into the helicopter by the rescue team. Rufus refused to let go of Jiya, who seemed to be pretty traumatized, clinging to Rufus and murmuring about monsters. Flynn parked himself between Lucy and Wyatt. Wyatt curled into Flynn’s side and immediately his eyes drooped, exhausted.

Lucy peered out the window as the helicopter took off. The still-burning lodge was below her, set against the mountains, dawn coming over the horizon. It was such an odd juxtaposition of peacefulness and destruction.

And there she was.

Not a corpse anymore, not angry and whispering. She was like she was in life, smiling. She was in the sunrise, she _was_ the sunrise, she was everywhere, she was still herself.

Lucy smiled, feeling tears well up in her eyes. Amy smiled back at her, her face the sun, warm, nothing but love.

“Goodbye, Amy,” she whispered.

She felt Wyatt’s hand reach out and tangle with hers, squeezing tight. Flynn kissed her temple, resting his forehead against hers.

_Goodbye, darling sister._

They’d made it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who makes it and who bites it:
> 
> Denise, Emma, Nicholas, Noah, Amy, and Jess all die.  
> Rufus, Flynn, Wyatt, Lucy, and Jiya all make it, although Jiya is presumed dead for most of the story.


End file.
